I have recently begun a push to get in shape. After 7 babies and a miscarriage, it was definitely time. I have been doing push ups, sit ups and squats at home, riding my bike, walking/running, and playing cardio tennis. I also swim whenever I can.

A few years, and two babies ago, I was in the same position of getting back into shape. I did workout videos, running, bike riding, swimming, and classes at the Y. I remember when I finally made the shift from out of shape to more in shape. Suddenly, running was easier, circuit training was fun (?!), and swimming was easier. At the time, I attributed everything to swimming. I was finally realizing my dream of being a fitness swimmer and was definitely in the honeymoon period.

Lately, I feel myself transitioning from hopelessly out of shape to in shape. It manifests in ways like I’m able to get to the ball faster in tennis, and freestyle isn’t such a chore in the pool. I feel like I am getting my cardio together. Swimming is old hat now; tennis is the ‘new thing,’ so I’m not as likely to attribute my change to swimming.

In fact, I wonder if it wasn’t just that it’s so much easier to swim, run, etc., when you’re lugging less weight around. I wonder if that wasn’t the issue all along.

That said, I had a great swim today, and I was thrilled with how much more manageable the anaerobic stuff was. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the pool was shorter than standard, based on my 100 IM time. I managed to swim 1000 yards in 45 minutes. I was on the clock because I was in the pool while my 9 year old was in a tennis lesson.

My 100 IM time of 2:48.81 was almost 2 seconds quicker than the last time I swam, despite the fact that I felt like I was moving in slow motion towards the end, breathing an extra time, and taking forever to press the stop button on my watch. . .

I look forward to more observation about swimming with less weight. Have you noticed a change in your swimming when you’ve lost weight?

After a few months off work, my daughter returned to the pool this past weekend. She had classes from 9-12, and one of them had over 20 kids in it.

She shared how she had one child that gave her trouble. The child wanted a different swim teacher to help her get to the deep end, but the other teacher was busy. My daughter kept her composure and told the child that she was it. The child relented, and had a successful time in the pool.

Rapport with the teacher is important when you’re learning to swim. If you resist your teacher, you could die. I wonder if there’s a gentle way to tell the children this as they start swim lessons. The teacher must be quick on her toes to anticipate little attitudes and what not.

It’s a tough job, but when you’re successful, you’ve changed someone’s life.

My 9 year-old daughter had a play date the other day. Her friend lives on a lake, and thought the weather was warm enough to go out in the paddle boat. Then her friend decided to jump in the water looking for shells. Now, if my daughter had been a non-swimmer, there would have been gnashing of teeth, maybe a tragedy, certainly drama. But, since she can swim, she didn’t hesitate to jump in after her friend. My daughter is a black girl, you know. She didn’t give her hair a second thought, even though I had spent hours fixing it a couple days ago. I’m glad she didn’t worry about her hair. She is also a little on the chubby side. I was thrilled that she has a friend that likes to do active things for fun; the lake is a bonus.

Of course, I knew none of this before I called to find out how she was getting home. That’s when her friend’s mother tells me that my daughter’s clothes were in the dryer. I knew she must have had a ball.

I spend a lot of time watching my children do gymnastics these days. It reminds me of the days I watched the older children perfect their strokes hour upon hour in the hot humid room with a pool. Then, I’d talk about how wonderful the water looked, and how badly I wanted to join the children. One of the swim fathers jumped in and kept up with the kids for a while. I was so jealous. I thought, surely I couldn’t do what these children are doing. Another parent, a mother, would bring her baby in a carseat, sit the baby at the head of a swim lane, and jump in and do her workout. I was amazed.

When the children changed teams, there were more adults of various levels in the water with the children. I talked to one of the more advanced adults, who also had children on the team. I told him of my dream to join them one day. He was very encouraging, telling me to join them as soon as my baby was born. . .

That was four years ago, and we had complications with the birth of that baby, and we haven’t returned to the pool since. I plan to return this summer with the young ones. It’s high time they learned to swim well.

Now, as I stated, I’m sitting in a crowded room of a cooler temperature, watching hundreds of children perfect the same moves endlessly. And, I’m still talking about swimming. I talked to one woman who grew up loving swimming, and has had her daughter in the water from infancy. They go to the beach almost daily in the summer, and they have a boat. They really enjoy life on the water. She told me a great story of how, during one of their beach visits, her old lifeguard training kicked in and she was able to save a father and son who’d gotten in over their heads.

I was much impressed; glad to hear that someone around my age could still lifeguard. Maybe it wasn’t too late for me to learn how to do that? I still regret that summer when I was a camp counselor and I had the chance to take lifeguard certification and I passed because I thought I was too weak a swimmer! It would have been much easier at 19 than at 40+! Oh well. . .

I have also tried to convert non-swimmers. I talk to a friend from my book club–another thing I quit attending 4 years ago–about swimming. Neither she nor her husband are strong swimmers, but they want their children to swim. They have their children enrolled in one of the programs our children were involved in before swim team. She feels a little sheepish that she can’t be a good swimming role model for her children. She was interested in my swim blog. She came to the site, and she ordered Total Immersion. I am excited to see where she goes with this.

By the way, one of the people I’d talked to about swimming years ago? She started swimming in the fall and did a triathlon by the spring. Coincidence?

Remember high school dances? There was no learning the dance at the party. If you didn’t already know before you got there, you were sorry. You had to step out already a superstar–it had to look natural.

The idea of “I’m not good at this; maybe it’s not for me” is also pervasive. That’s opposed to the attitude of “stick with it, you can make it!” We don’t tend to believe this kind of talk.

But, the thing is, this kind of talk creates champions. I read about professional swimmers who weren’t always the star of the swim club. They kept working on it. Their hard work paid off. It seems counter intuitive to keep plugging away in the pool even after you lose race after race. You begin to think you’ll never win. But you already win if you don’t give up. Part of winning is tenacity. Talent doesn’t matter a whole lot if you don’t stick with anything long enough to get proficient.

In the book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell puts forth the theory that it takes 10,000 hours to get good at something. That would be a mind-numbingly long time in the pool. It would be durn near impossible to accomplish if you weren’t really feeling swimming in the first place.

So how do you keep yourself encouraged while you’re not yet good? That’s the $64,000 question.

None of the people I follow ended up winning the JAX 50, but the men’s winner is of interest anyway. He is also responsible for Trinidad and Tobago’s first medal for swimming. (in the 2004 Olympics). George Bovell is actually a native to America, but represented those tropical nations in the Olympics. This really piques my curiosity. Does it matter which nation you represent in the Olympics, or just that you go there?

You can catch the winning races as well as some of the qualifying heats here.

FYI: For the women, Arlene Semeco finished in 5th place, and Arianna Vanderpool Wallace finished 4th. Kara Lynn Joyce beat Amanda Weir for $3,000 and the championship.

For the men, Cullen Jones finished 3rd, Sabir Muhammed, 5th.