Last swim lesson (for now)

Wednesday was the last class of 'intermediate' swim lessons for the spring session.

I feel like I did relatively well - enough to try to continue the technique on my own for awhile. Maybe I'll go back to lessons in the fall.

There were six people in the intermediate class.

It seems that all of us, at some level, have a triathlon on our minds.

One girl did a triathlon last weekend in Lake Geneva. The swim was 650m.

I asked her how it went, and she said that after the halfway point, she was just trying to survive/stay above water. She talked about getting kicked and how murky the water was.

Ok, let's get this straight -

I'm thinking about signing up for a race, in which, I would get into deep, murky water with other swimmers. We then swim a far distance, kicking and running in to each other along the way.

Sounds frightening.

Holmes Place boyfriend/coach

I started swimming lessons. That means I have to practice swimming.

I enter the pool area of the gym in mid-February with some serious nerves.

I hadn't even looked at the pool area when I joined the gym - thinking I'd never use it. Now I was going to get in it.

Quick check of the depth - 4'. I'm safe. By 2 feet.

I swim the first session with no winesses.

The second session, on the next Friday, would be different.

The pool is three lanes. In the far lane is a middle aged woman swimming with a snorkel and a few pool noodles. In the center lane is her friend, a middle aged man. He wears oversized goggles but appears to know how to swim. Lane 3 is open, so I get in.

I start in on my very basic technique which barely involves side breathing. I can get about five strokes in before I have to stop and regroup. This goes on for a half hour.

Two weeks later, they are both in the pool again when I get there. By this time, I sort of have side breathing down, but just to my left side.

This time, the man strikes up a conversation with me. First, by asking if I was ever a model. (He certainly could tell I wasn't a swimmer, right?)

So we talk briefly. I tell him I barely know what I'm doing. I know he's watching here and there. He gives no pointers. As he's getting out of the pool he says 'you're getting it. you look a lot better than you did last time!'

And so the story continues, from February into May.

I've seen him a handful of times now and I mind as well make this guy my coach. He's watched me swimming more than anyone else. He seems to have breaststroke down, but I don't know how well his freestyle technique is. I can't say I've watched him much.

Last Friday he was there again. He asks me a again if I'm a model, to which I say no, but now I can sort of swim. He says he can tell I've been 'workin' it' in the pool. He can tell my form has gotten better and I'm bi-lateral breathing now. He gives me words of encouragement and asks what's made me 'get serious' about swimming.

So I tell him the truth - One day I want to do a triathlon.

Maybe it's because he's my sort-of-coach, but he tells me that he thinks I should sign up for one and he'll come watch me.

I think I have many more dates with the pool before that happens.

The first swimming lesson

2010 started off a bit rough, but where there may be a roadblock there's also an opportunity - in early February I went back to swimming lessons.

I say I went back because I did go to swimming lessons once before. I was 6. My mom enrolled me in swim class with some neighborhood kids. I hated it and feared going.

The last class we had to 'dive' into the pool from the edge. I remember thinking through the process and not wanting to do it. At one point, she said I could have anything I wanted from K-mart if I just did it. That's the only time she ever said that, but I decided the task at hand was too big of a risk. Instead I opted to 'fail.' I was in trouble in the car on the way home, but I had taken a stand and held it for the next 24 years. I would not swim.

Until this past February.

Knowing I would never willingly sign myself up for lessons, I suggested that they be bought as a Christmas gift. In early February, I showed up at Northwestern's pool to find five other, seemingly normal adults, standing around waiting for an instructor.

We were the beginner swimming group.

We got in the pool. The instructor introduced herself. We made small talk.

Then she explained our first exercise. We would float face down in the water.

A look of fear immediately crossed all of our faces.

This is what we all feared.

I momentarily thought about getting out of the pool and just going home. I'd made it to 30 without swimming, I would be fine without it. Then I thought of how I never thought I'd run a marathon and I've proven I can do that so...maybe I should just try this stupid floating thing?

So I did it.

And, somehow, I lived.