Lessons from the Water : a Swimmer's Journey through the Tides of Life (Paperback)

"Lessons from the Water" tells the story of ultramarathon swimmer Katie Blair, a wild little girl from Germany whose inability to sit still took her on a series of adventures around the world: from the Ironman Hawaii to Colorado mountain lakes, swims around Key West and Manhattan Island, crossings of the Catalina, English and Molokai channels, and from the lakes of Vermont to Tampa Bay and the Irish Sea. Not only does she take readers along to some of the world's most prestigious endurance sports events, she also shares the life lessons learned along the way. Her life shows that our exceptional accomplishments are often accompanied and fueled by exceptional pain. To live vividly and ferociously means to open yourself up to the possibility of failure, devastation and to truly face our deepest fears, or as Katie calls them, our "dark passengers." As an endurance athlete of 30 years, a survivor of a life-threatening eating disorder, a mother, psychotherapist, citizen of the world and lover of nature, Katie wants to share this message of encouragement: In a world that is all too removed from our natural struggle for survival, it is our connection with nature and our acceptance of the high and low tides of life that make us truly human.