Swimming Alcatraz

Amanda Griffin and her family have been part of our church for almost 15 years. She shares her journey of faith and resilience while swimming Alcatraz,  a compelling reminder of the strength found in community and perseverance.

“I grew up swimming, and it was always something I enjoyed doing. I took a break after college, and then after our first daughter, I got back into the pool and found it to be a happy place for me to clear my mind. It was something I could do for myself, and there was also the added health benefit.

I’ve had some friends along the way who have swum Alcatraz, and I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, that’s a whole other level of swimming!”

Last year, a family friend of ours was halfway kidding with me that we should swim Alcatraz together. I’m thinking to myself, that’s just not my thing. I like to swim in a pool with my own lane, with chlorine, and no sea life. Eventually, my curiosity was sparked, and I looked into the race to see the requirements and gauge my skill level. Then I realized I could do this, and it set in, “Oh, I could do this!” Over the next couple of weeks, I kept going back to the website, looking at the dates, reviewing requirements, and started
looking at training to prepare.

I talked to my husband, Tanner, about it, thinking he’d surely say I was out of my mind and no way should I do this. Instead, he said, “Let’s do it!” I started training, and I met some other people that helped me on the mental side of a swim like this. When you swim in a pool, everything is a controlled environment; you literally stay in your lane, and you don’t have to worry about things below you or bumping into people. When you get to the wall, you just flip and go back to the other end. With open water swimming, there are so many different factors, and I felt like it was taking me to a different level of something I already loved and enjoyed doing. It also made me start paying attention to my health. I’m generally a healthy person, but I had to start thinking about fueling my body because my workouts increased. I really noticed days when I had not eaten well with the right carbs or the right protein because I was sluggish in the pool.

I feel like I peeled back a layer of myself with something that I had been given as a gift and I wanted to bring it up and really expand on it. In doing so, I met other groups of people that I otherwise would not have branched out into meeting; I expanded my territory in a sense. One of the groups was an Austin Open Water Swim group that met on Friday mornings very early. I was scared and nervous because I didn’t know anybody in this group, and it felt like first-day-of-school nerves. I didn’t know how good they were, what their caliber was, or if they were going to leave me behind, but they were so nice and different from who I had been swimming with.

I could not see the bottom, and I kept running into branches, and grass was curling around my legs, and stuff that was not controlled. Swimming with them helped me with keeping my spotting and also people being around me in the sense that there wasn’t a lane keeping them from getting into my space. I was really glad that I had done that because it prepared me for what I was about to encounter. I think this is the story for life. You need to just stay focused on what you want.

As I prepared for the race, I found myself often getting anxious and scared about the race, but as soon as those feelings and fears would start, I would quickly turn to God in prayer and ask Him to comfort my mind and not allow my anxieties and fears about the race to overcome me. That was when I started talking with God several times on a daily basis.

The day of the race, I felt strong, and that I had taken care of my body by fueling it. Even the anxiety of water was taken care of for me; it didn’t faze me how cold it was because I had prepared myself and calmed my mind in prayer. Next, it was just a matter if I was literally going to going to panic when I hit the water or would it be too much for me. I really had to rely on my faith like I’ve never done before. Many people I talked to can’t get over the idea that I swam Alcatraz. This was a big deal for me, but the even bigger part for me was the experience God brought me through would be mine the rest of my life.

Did you share your fears and the experience of relying on God’s guidance during the race with your daughters?

I was pretty open with my girls leading up to the race about some of my feelings so they could see how I overcame them. They would also openly ask me questions like if I was scared about the water, did I think I was going to be strong enough to finish, and of course if I thought I would see a shark! I was glad they felt comfortable asking me these questions to see how talking through something can help you overcome a challenge. I also wanted them to see how much I was relying on God’s guidance for something in my life. After the race, I shared with them how the strength I experienced in the water during the race did not feel like my own and definitely felt like it was strength that He provided me to get through the race. I do love how they saw full circle, the goal accomplished with the help of God.

How did the support of friends impact your journey and mindset leading up to and during the race?

I have a strong group of friendships at the church that listened to me many times about my fears and anxieties about the race. Even before I had signed up for the race and it was just a thought, I went to these friends to ask them for prayer as I made this decision. It felt so good knowing I had friends from the church praying for this development in my life and then once at the race, praying for my completing the race.

If we could determine what you value most about our church, what would that be?

If I were to narrow down the most important thing to me about our church, it would be the sense of family it offers me and my own family. It doesn’t just happen on Sunday, but throughout my week I think about the faces of our church, the small groups we interact with, friendships at the church, our pastors, and staff all come to mind throughout my week. It really does complete a place in my heart that I have a church family like this.

For how long have you been a member of DSMC? What was life like before you attended our church and now?

Tanner and I started attending DS Methodist Church in 2010. Before that, we visited other churches, but what it really came down to for us more than anything was finding a church that took us in like a family.
Before our church, the churches we attended had good messages, good programs, but they lacked that family feel that we both wanted.”