I squeezed in another swim session during my daughter’s lifeguard shift yesterday.

The pool was crowded, so there were three of us crammed into a single lane for lap swimming. I haven’t shared lanes in a while, and I self-consciously hugged the lane lines most of the time.

I was tired, but motivated to swim better in the shared lane. This meant that I swam 900 yards total–no elementary backstroke at all. That is quite a feat for me. My daughter still tells me that my freestyle breathing is wrong. She says I move my body too much. I must have created that tick by the constant breathing drills I do.

It was good training for Masters swimming, I’m sure. I never see those folks swim 1 per lane.

This is not a theme I want to recur, ie., I stay out of the pool so long I can’t stand it anymore, then I return and happily blog about it. That sounds like the recipe for standing still, or worse, getting behind.

But I had to work out some issues before I could see clear to go swimming again. So, today, I tagged along with my daughter when she went to work. She was a lifeguard for three hours; I thought I could swim during one of those. I was so proud going to the lifeguard to ask which lane I could swim in. No matter that the pool schedule said there’d be just one lane available for lap swim; there were actually four available lanes.

My watch is broken. The watch face is loose and sometimes it pops out altogether. I could feel the pressure of the water on my watch as I swam my first lap. I took it off after that, and looked at it after every lap. I turned on the timer before my 100 IM and quickly pressed the start button and pushed off the wall for my butterfly. I pushed myself hard for the whole IM and then pressed the button when I was done. The time read 0.00. I hadn’t pressed start properly!

I have been out of the pool long enough that today was tough for me. I feel like I’m not floating as well either. Maybe, I think wistfully, I’ve lost some of my fat. Of course I asked my daughter to analyze my stroke. My swim insecurity is relentless. She told me that I move too much during my freestyle breathing. I am currently tilting my whole body on my freestyle breathing to get maximum air. I’ll have to tone that down a bit and see how that works. I still found myself panting like a dog after my first freestyle lap.

Later on in my set I had an easier time with freestyle, but I never try to swim 100 after my warm up. There’s still so much room for improvement. But I was very glad to make it back to the pool. I swam 1000 yards and got out, shoulders a bit sore.

It was a great start to the day, and I look forward to doing this again next Saturday.

A month ago, I wrote about a comment my Pastor’s wife made about not being able to swim. She made a passing remark, “I don’t swim, so I stay away from the water. . . ”

Today, the Pastor made more than a passing comment. He made a long joke about not being able to swim. He was funny, too, talking about how folks wanted to throw him in the lake at the Church Picnic, but since he couldn’t swim, he had no bones with kicking someone’s behind for trying to throw him in. He even made jokes about drowning. “I didn’t know he couldn’t swim. . . ” Everyone, including I, were laughing.

But, having read the latest drowning study, I was disturbed by the attitude that you can protect yourself from drowning by just staying out of the water. That is what makes it highly unlikely that children of non-swimmers will ever learn to swim. How are you going to use the strategy of avoiding water on yourself and not your child?

The truth is, many non-swimming parents forbid their children from taking swim lessons. I don’t think my Pastor falls in that group. But he does influence those in that group. I just wish he wouldn’t joke about something so life and death.

A few years ago, our pastor announced from the pulpit that we as a congregation need to get in shape. To do something about that, the church offered a discount on YMCA memberships. I wonder what would happen if he announced that we as a congregation need to learn to swim. He could singlehandedly reverse the Black drowning rate in our city.

Just food for thought. Maybe I should tell him. . .

I made it back to the pool this last week after a three week break. I averaged about 4 minutes per 100 yards, and swam for 30 minutes. To complete the math problem, that would mean I swam 700 yards during my half hour. My 100 IM was a notable exception to my average. I swam that at 2:45.22, which is a decent time for me.

I think my days of unmonitored swimming are coming to an end. I plan to sign up for Masters Swimming as soon as possible, putting myself under a swim coach for the first time ever. Who knows? Maybe nothing will change. But maybe everything will change. Maybe that will get me closer to my goal of entering a triathlon, and my secret dreams of competing. But first, I want to swim for weight loss and fitness.

This should be an interesting journey.

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?

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.