There is a chubby fourth grade boy who enjoys chasing himself with the tetherball at recess. Danny winds it up, lets it fly, and runs squealing in circles, trying to escape the leashed ball. When I swim, I imagine that I move with same grace and speed as this waddling nine-year old.
As a swimmer, I’ve distinguished myself as the one person that doesn’t do a single lap of freestyle throughout an entire swim workout. Despite my best efforts, I’ve found that getting a healthy intake of oxygen and keeping afloat while using this stroke are mutually exclusive tasks. I used to alternate between 6 strokes of freestyle and a couple of side strokes which allowed me to catch my breath. This seems really lame and so I pretty much stick to breast stroke. I can hack my way through the back stroke, but I have a continual flinch at the fear of smacking my head on the cement wall (again).
I only started lap swimming this summer, and with one exception, I never swim more than 1/4 mile at a time. The exception would be the time I swam 1/4 mile, plus 2 laps, just so I could say that I swam more than my usual 18 laps.
Today was my first day back in the pool after a several month hiatus (and given that I only started this whole swimming thing about 7 months ago, well…) Anyways, as I jumped in the pool, I planned on putting in my obligatory 1/4 mile and then heading upstairs for some cardio.
As I struggled through my 18 laps, I watched the lean and not so lean fill up the other lanes in the pool and then glide from end to end with grace and ease. As men with legs smoother than my own powered through their workouts, I plodded along. When the water aerobics ladies aren’t taking up half the pool with their floaties, flippers, and Abba soundtrack, swimming is pretty boring. After a sunny 14 mile trail run yesterday, the views of a swimming pool pale in comparison. My focus rotated between the blue line on the bottom of the pool, my chipped nail polish, and the oh so distant, 3 1/2 feet sign at the end of the lane.
Once I had finished my 18 laps, I took of my goggles and got ready to forfeit my lane. But alas, as Summer Sanders jumped in next to me, I decided to go just two more laps. And then 2 more. And a short eternity later, I did a flipping 1/2 mile! It took forever, was seriously boring and I’m sure I looked like a wounded fish. But I was victorious! And exhausted. I was able to retire to my couch, the Bachelor, Ben & Jerry’s and a project one of my parent volunteers botched and was now time to fix. And finally, I have come to the time I’ve been looking forward to since the alarm went off this morning: time for bed.
