I love to swim. There is something about getting into a
pool, or a body of water, and just feeling the freedom of floating. I tell people
I’ve been swimming since I could walk, and although that’s probably not
strictly accurate, it’s not far from the truth. I was lucky enough to gain
access to a swimming pool on a regular basis when I was younger and encouraged
to learn to swim all the strokes there were. When I went to school once again I
was lucky enough to have a school that had a pool so in the summer I spent the
majority of my free time there, often getting in the pool twice a day, although
I’m not sure exactly how much swimming I did and how much messing around I was
doing instead! Enough swimming was done for me to be the fastest at backstroke,
and I often won races (although I lost a couple by turning over at the end to
make sure I didn’t crash - sorry!).
My one regret when I went to university is that I didn’t
stick it out in the pool. I probably had far too much fun going out and
discovering the internet (which was a relatively novel invention in those days)
and “didn’t have time” for swimming club. I did go swimming, every now and
then, but it wasn’t particularly structured or intensive. Once I’d moved away
from the swimming pool, I went less and less frequently. When I moved to
Cambridge, I didn’t go at all – instead I played really bad badminton, a game I
have now given up due to me being far too bad at hand-eye coordination to carry
on with!
So we move to the present day. I’m now at my fittest I’ve been
for a long time, but, once I’d signed up for the triathlon, I kept saying “I
must get back to the pool”. I’d joined the local gym specifically for their
pool but found that I was too slow for the fast lane and too fast for the slow
lane, a very frustrating set of affairs. Once I’d moved to Woolwich I was five minutes’
walk from the local pool. But it took me nearly six months to get there. Why?
Well it didn’t help that I was cycling 20 miles to work and back. By the time I’d
got home, I was tired and hungry. Going swimming was the last thing on my mind.
At weekends I’m often busy or tired. I still had faith in my ability to swim,
despite the fact that I hadn’t actually been in a pool and done more than 20
laps (most of which breastroke) for a very long time.
I went along to the triathlon training day, and had a bit of
a shock. Admittedly I had put a lot of effort into the running session prior to
the swimming, but the sudden transition into an environment where there were no
walls to hang on to and the fact I couldn’t see where I was going through the
murky water totally threw me. My “strong swimmer” status was incorrect. I
resolved that I had to start going to my local triathlon club to start swimming
every week with them to improve my swimming style, fitness base and confidence
in the water.
