MURRAY — A swimming pool, or any body of water for that matter, might as well be Walden Pond to Joe Horton.
Henry David Thoreau ranks as one of his favorite authors, “Walden” one of his favorite books. Thoreau spent two years living a simple life. He studied ants. He swam in the pond. Horton’s connection to the 19th century essayist and naturalist started in high school in California at a time when he felt embarrassed about being different because he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away,” Thoreau wrote.
Horton loves that quote. It’s on display in his home.
“What I got from Thoreau was permission to be different,” he said.
On this warm May morning, Horton, who turns 71 in July, swims laps at the Sports Mall in Murray, though he might as well be at Walden Pond. He powers through the lane in a turquoise swim cap, goggles and light blue trunks, his white beard flashing to the surface when he turns his head to take a breath. The waterline is where all his deep thinking is done.
Immersed in aqueous solitude, the retired hospital administrator ponders and prays about his most vexing problems stroke after stroke, lap after lap. He spends the first 15 minutes of his typical hour-long swims giving thanks. He thinks about his wife, Pat Jones Horton, two sons and six grandchildren. He recites to himself things he likes to keep in his head, not the least of which is the Crispin Day speech, one of the most famous monologues from Shakespeare’s “Henry V.”
“I find that my problem-solving skills are better after about 30 minutes of swimming. My mind would clear. I was just sharper. So I solved a lot of problems just swimming in the pool,” he said, a congenial tone to his voice.
“But also it’s like just sort of meditating. It lends itself to that because you can’t talk to anybody. The sounds are kind of meditative. You just hear the sound of the water as you move through it and you can’t see very far, so it lends itself to meditating and prayer.”
10,000 miles and counting
Previously a runner, Horton started swimming after he tore his meniscus in a fall during a hike in Yosemite. That was in 1982. He has swum a mile three or four times a week ever since.
About a year ago, a close friend who had just run his 10,000th mile inspired him to calculate all his miles in the pool. He realized he was about 300 short of 10,000. He ramped up to six or seven times a week, hitting the milestone in late April. And he has no plans to hang up his goggles.
Swimming 10,000 miles in a lifetime is a significant physical and mental accomplishment. It’s about the equivalent of swimming across the Atlantic Ocean from New York City to the coast of Africa and back. It’s roughly 9.2 million strokes. Swimming that distance over four decades is a testament to perseverance, dedication and passion for the sport.
And for Horton, a necessity.
“He swims everywhere he goes. I think it helps him clear his head,” said his wife, former Utah state Sen. Pat Jones, whom he married in 2023 and who now goes by Jones Horton. Her husband, Dan Jones, died in 2018.
Jones Horton posted Horton’s achievement on Facebook with a photo of him holding a handwritten sign, reading, “10,000 swim miles, 4/27/2025, Congratulations, Joe!!”
A new beginning
The couple met serendipitously through University of Michigan professor Cathy Kilaly, who was in Salt Lake City for a hospital administration conference in June 2022. Kilaly happened to sit next to Jones Horton in a cafe at Little America and they started talking. When Jones Horton mentioned she was on the board at Intermountain Health, the professor said she knew someone at Intermountain: Joe Horton.
As it happened, Horton, who teaches a yearly leadership class at Michigan, met Kilaly for dinner while she was in town and she told him she had shared his contact information with Jones Horton and hoped it was OK. It was more than OK. Turns out, Horton lived in her legislative district and had voted for her all five times she won seats in the Utah House and Utah Senate.
“I had no idea how important that would turn out to be later in my life,” he said.
Neither expected to ever marry again but a romance blossomed. “The truth of my life is that my marriage to Pat is a miracle,” Horton said. “That is something I thought would never happen.”
Last October, the two traveled to Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, to pay homage to Thoreau. They both swam in the crystal clear water. “I love getting into water at places that matter to me, so Walden Pond is one of those, and it was wonderful to do that with Pat,” Horton said. He also swims at Laguna Beach beyond the breakers where the water is calm and clean.
“I think it keeps him young and vibrant, which is what I need,” Jones Horton said.
Motivation to swim is never a problem. “I’ve just done it for a lot of years. It’s become part of my lifestyle. I’ve become very committed to it. If I don’t do it, I don’t feel as good,” Horton said.
The ants go marching on
An English major, naturally, at the University of Utah, Horton wasn’t sure what to do with his life after graduation. After a week in law school, he decided that wasn’t for him. He took what today might be called a gap year to figure it out. He discovered hospital administration while working at LDS Hospital in the meantime. He went on to get a master’s degree in the field at the University of Minnesota.
His first administration job was at Cottonwood Hospital in Murray. His true calling, though, didn’t come until five years later. And that starts with a story about ants.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
