Day 20: Lake Swimmer

I can swim.

Yes, it's true. I spent the weekend at a cottage on a beautiful lake, and I learned how to swim. My dad was there, and he actually taught me, and he's a good swimmer; it's likely he could have taught me years ago if I had wanted to learn. He took a look at my "front crawl" and said, as kindly as possible, "I don't think you're doing that right." My husband, who also was witness to my early and futile attempts last week has reported that I was thrashing my legs and arms and flailing like crazy. Apparently, I was also arching my back, lifting my head, and turning my entire face to the sky in an attempt to breathe. And all of this motion was wearing me out almost instantly. I could not manage more than a couple of strokes without stopping to pant in exhaustion. I was willing to keep trying, and thought perhaps I could improve my endurance and continue on, but the effort seemed unimaginably difficult.

Turns out, it's easier to swim than I thought. In fact, being relaxed and calm is the first ingredient. Knowing when to breathe--at which point in the stroke--and trusting that you won't be breathing in a lungful of water helps a lot. I'm still no technically skilled swimmer by any stretch of the imagination, but I can climb into cold water in a damp rain (almost too Canadian for me), and crawl by degrees across a stretch of lake from rock to rock, about 200m in length, and then turn around and crawl back again, in deep water, and without fear. I begin my stroke by gliding with my head to the side, to get a sense of how it's supposed to feel, and then I turn my head under the water, blow out air, and begin to swim. When I feel tired, or lose my rhythm, I use the gliding side stroke as a recovery stroke for a few breaths, and then begin again. I have a long long way to go in terms of improving the crawl stroke, and gaining endurance, but it feels entirely possible now, and I am relishing the comfort I feel in water, in a lake specifically. I don't love pools, and have rarely swum in them; that will prove my challenge for this coming fall and winter and spring, as there will be no (unfrozen) lakes available. I hope that lake swimming will translate to lane swimming. I still swim with my eyes closed (one thing at a time). I will need to get comfortable using goggles.

After this success swimming, and the relative ease of it, I wanted to sign up instantly for the last try-a-tri(athlon) of the season, which is in less than two weeks. It would require swimming 350m, biking 10k, and running 2.5k, all of which suddenly sound do-able. Except I've missed the deadline by a hair, and registration is now closed. I do not feel relieved; I feel disappointed. I would have liked to have tried, for the sake of the experience, and to get an instant sense of how very hard (or plausible) this goal of a full triathlon might be. I could still go to the event for the atmosphere. But the triathlon season is closing down; that's it till next summer. I will have to content myself with the runs planned for this fall.

Which means I need to get to bed, so that I can get up and run. I am going to try to run 9k tomorrow morning, and meet up with a friend partway through. Any other friends out there looking to join in the quest?