'Just seems ridiculous': 90-year-old swimmer can't believe she's logged 10,000 miles at Elgin Y
Swimming slowly and deliberately, creating only the gentlest ripple in the water, 90-year-old Lavon Bayler of Elgin side-stroked her way the length of the 25-meter pool at the Taylor Family YMCA in Elgin early Wednesday morning.
Up and back eight times, Bayler, who has been swimming there for 45 years, took roughly 40 minutes to conclude her quarter-mile for the day. It was a momentous quarter-mile.
Bayler finished her 10,000th mile in the pool.
"I can't believe it," she said. "10,000 miles just seems ridiculous."
The staff watching from the pool deck and fellow swimmers had no trouble believing it.
"She's always the first one here before the building even opens," said Erika Bopp, the facility's aquatics director. "She might be our oldest swimmer, but she's definitely the most dedicated."
Fellow swimmer Kim Kolaczewski, 68, of Elgin, swam up and hugged Bayler after her last lap.
"She's my motivation, my inspiration," Kolaczewski said.
It's been a long journey to 10,000 miles.
Bayler didn't even know how to swim until after high school.
"I was afraid of water," she said. "But when I was in college, I thought I should learn to swim."
She took to it like a fish to water, learning all the various strokes. But after college, it became one of those things she didn't have time or opportunity to do.
Fast forward 20 years: Bayler joined the YMCA in 1978 when there was a special on their family memberships.
"I decided somebody is going to get our money's worth for this," she said. She started swimming daily and filling out a record card that the Y kept at the pool to keep track of the miles swimmers logged in the water. They offered a free T-shirt when someone reached 50 miles.
"I thought, 'Who's ever going to swim 50 miles?'" she said.
She's been keeping track of her distance ever since. Bayler said she used to swim about a mile and a quarter daily but scaled that back over the years.
There were additional free T-shirts along the way. But her favorite souvenir from the journey is a sweatshirt that a staff member decorated for her when she hit 3,000 miles.
Bayler can't remember what year that was. But every thousand miles, they've added more decorations marking the total. After her swim Wednesday morning, she put 10,000 in large bold numbers with a Sharpie at the bottom.
Bopp said she always sees something reflected in the seniors who swim.
"There's something different about their energy - about their mobility," she said. "Getting in the water and swimming every day has such a positive effect on our older community, and she's living proof of that."
Even after 45 years, Bayler still enjoys quiet time in the water.
She used to spend her time in the pool thinking about her ministry work with the United Church of Christ. Now she jokes that she thinks only about "getting to the other end."
"Actually, I remember a lot of things," Bayler said. "I've had a very fortunate life with a lot of wonderful opportunities. I shake my head and wonder how I did all those things."
Bayler said she's done setting milestone goals. But she will keep coming to the pool every day. Will she keep counting the laps?
"I hope I can give it up," she said.