Mind you, these obstacles are not insurmountable.  They just make it a little more difficult.  I was just thinking how I would have loved to have been on my high school swim team (lo so many years ago!), but I thought it was impossible for some of the following reasons:

5.  I can’t swim I ‘m not a strong swimmer

I didn’t know that coaches are willing to work with someone, especially someone with passion for the sport.  That whole deal about you have to swim a LOT of laps is true.  That just makes you stronger, and stronger is a good thing in competitive swimming.

4.  Black people can’t don’t float

Ok, so we have denser bones and muscles.  So that affects buoyancy, but again, strength comes in the picture.  Denser muscle translates into power for speed, something you need in competitive swimming, no?

3. the hair

This is a biggie.  If I had swum in High School, I probably would have joined the ranks of the *bald-headed,* because of the chemicals in the pool clashing with the chemicals in my perm.  But guess what?  Chlorine is bad for everybody’s hair.  Maybe just a little worse for a permed head.  So don’t wear a perm!  Some folks solve the problem by locking their hair.  Others go with extensions.  I wear my hair natural and have it monitored regularly by my hairdresser.  I ultimately chose the pool chemicals over hair chemicals, because I just had to swim!  This is a sport you can do until you’re old.  You can do this if you can’t walk.  It’s like weight training, stretching and running all in one.

2.  the skin

Can you say “ashy?”  You will have to double up on moisturizer, baby oil, vaseline, lotion, etc. if you’re going to swim.  Think of it as spa treatment.

1.  I don’t know anyone who swims. . .

While swimming is a great sport for solitude, (it’s hard to talk and breathe at the same time, heh), it’s also a warm community.  I remember when I started swimming at the Y, I met an older woman who admired my breast stroke.  She invited me out to breakfast with all the other swimmers.  I was so taken aback by being called a swimmer that I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Another option is to go with friends.  You all can learn together, or get better together.  I love seeing someone I know at the pool!

My point is, don’t let any of these things stop you.  If you want to swim, go for it!  If you’re looking for a gentle, yet strenuous exercise program, swim!  Try it!  You won’t regret it.

I’ve been operating under the assumption that I WILL DIE if I exert myself too hard in the pool. I can feel my heart beating through my chest, and then the blood rushes to my arms, and I start to panic. Suddenly, I’m positive that I don’t have enough breath to finish my length, and . . . life was good while it lasted. . .

But today, I dealt with that faulty thinking. I started swimming at 6:30, later than I usually like. I’d rather start no later than 6, because then I could get home before the kids wake up. At least in theory.

But that wasn’t why I pushed myself to swim faster. It as another case of timing myself. As I did last time I swam, I swam four 100 IMs, and timed each one. I swam the first one at 2:47.76. I was happy about this, being almost 5 seconds faster than my fastest time last session. The second IM came in at 2:56.94. Hmmm. Couldn’t blame the wall; I was next to the rope this time. The third IM came in at 2:56.94. Even slower! That’s when I decided that I would sprint the fourth IM. Even if it killed me, because I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t. I also wasn’t sure that trying to swim faster would actually translate into a quicker time. I finished the fourth IM at 2:46.29. How about that? 10+ seconds faster than the 3rd IM, and 1+ second quicker than the first IM!

That sprint, albeit slow, did something for the rest of my set. I was able to face swimming freestyle, the stroke I’d like to increase my yards in, but that usually scares me the most that I’m going to die, because of all the exertion. I realized that no you won’t die, and that if I’d been out of water, I would have just started sweating or something. Ok, sweat I can deal with.

I was able to finally swim a 100 free without panicking, and finish out my set at 1600 total yards. I’m 200 away from a mile. Next time I plan to start my warmup with back stroke, followed by breast stroke, and then tackle 100 free. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

So I went swimming again this morning. I stepped into the pool at 5:50, and out of the pool at 6:52. I love my (Timex Ironman) watch, if I must say.

I knew that today was a swim team day at the Y, so that at some point in the 6 o’clock hour, the pool would be full, so I got in the slow lane, the double lane near the door that they reserve for lap swimming even during swim team practice.

I had the lane to myself at first, but I was soon joined by an older man doing the doggie paddle. I’m one of those folks that likes to swim near the wall. Call me crazy, but it’s probably left over from my days as a non-swimmer. Gotta make sure the wall is still there, you see?

ahem.

I must have swum 200 yards when a woman joined us, swimming down the middle. That kind of thing used to bother me. Now I’m used to it. Or so I thought.

When it came time in my workout to do my IMs, I clicked my watch to time myself. I swam the first 100 IM in 2:57.22. That was much slower than last week, when I swam it at 2:50 and some change. That was discouraging.  So I decided to time my second IM. 2:58.46. Wow!

I accepted the fact that no matter what I did, each IM would be slower than the last, and I was just having an off day. My third IM was even slower: 3:00.75. Then the old man left the pool. The only way I could tell was that the woman had moved over. I moved over. More specifically, I moved off the wall, which I had been hugging for most of my set. I timed my fourth IM. 2:52.37. That was more like it! That was more in line with last week.

Who knew? The wall can slow you down that much. In fact, the wall was an even bigger factor than stopping to catch my breath before the last length.

I can’t say enough good things about that watch. . .

btw, I reached two goals in the pool this morning:  to swim 1500 overall, and to swim a 100 free in my warmup.  Next goal:  to swim 100 free in warmup and cool down.

“Mommy, will you take me swimming someday?” My number four child is so sweet. I have a hard time resisting her. I told her if she could get her school done quickly yesterday (Friday), I would take her to the Y.

It was on. The two little girls, 6 and 8 finished their homeschool at record pace. I had to convince the 4 year old boy to come along; he doesn’t swim yet and is a little scared of the water. I thought one teenager would be a good help, and I was surprised when my 17 year old daughter volunteered. She usually opts to protect the ‘do, but as it’s our hairdresser’s holiday break, we’re three weeks out between appointments now. Of course I wanted to bring waterbaby; she has the cutest swimsuit ever, and she really likes the water.

We got to the Y shortly after open swim began, and I almost lost my temper in the rush to the pool. I’d thought ahead and had the little girls and myself already in our suits, but just the act of dressing 4 year old and 9 month old was trying. 4 year old can dress himself, but he’d rather not, and then had to go potty, thought he couldn’t get out of the stall. .

So I walked us all past the shower, thinking foolishly that we could avoid getting our hair wet at a pool!

We saw our next door neighbor kids and their uncle at the pool right away. .. and a pool full of other people, many of them black. This is usually the case at open swim, now that I think about it; the pool so crowded that you can’t really swim.

But I try to have my young swimmers practice their strokes. My six year old kicked so hard above the water that she got my hair wet immediately, along with all the faces in her path. I urged her to kick underwater, and she swam much better.

The baby was content to be held and chew on her sister’s goggles. She was NOT happy when her sister needed her goggles, however. The 4 year old was reminding me of his big sister before she learned how to swim–”I got water in my ear!” and he kept trying to get out of the pool, despite wearing a cube and floaties on each arm. I had him play chase the ball around the pool, to his dismay, but eventually he got into it, and was actually tooling around the pool without much trouble.

8 year old was constantly checking how deep the pool was, seeing if she could stand, underwater stealth stuff. I asked her to swim breast stroke and butterfly, and found she can’t butterfly yet. 17 year old didn’t really want to teach her sisters the fly either. She wanted to play basketball, but there were a bunch of dudes monopolizing the hoop, and she had siblings to supervise, so she let that alone.

6 year old got tired of really swimming and grabbed too many noodles and started trying to make them into a raft. She kept going under them and running into people, and in general had a ball!

Before we exited the pool, I counted 17 black people and 12 white people in the pool.  And smiling faces all around.