Swimming Lessons
Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash
September 20, 2024
I felt anxious as I got ready to drive to the aquatics center. Tense, stomach churning, all the nerves on edge. What was I afraid of? Just the work of it: once I was in the pool I’d be committed to 30 minutes of hard physical work.
When it’s time to start the day’s fitness routine, I’m a reluctant exerciser. Whether it’s running, strength training, a barre class, even vinyasa yoga, I’d really rather not, although once I get started the flow keeps me going. Swimming is different. Not the flow part, which happens the same as with all the other workouts. But starting a swim raises my resistance to something like dread. Which just confirms my instinct that this is something I need to do.
I wanted to start swimming again after a lapse of many years because, although my exercise regimen was good, with daily barre classes and walking, I needed more cardio work. And swimming is one of the best cardio workouts, especially if you want low-impact exercise.
I was a runner from my early twenties until, at 37 and pregnant with my firstborn, running became very uncomfortable. Luckily I had added some bicycling and swimming, including a few short-distance triathlons, so I turned to swimming for my pregnancy workouts. In the morning of the day I went into labor I swam for an hour, not knowing then what the extra energy I felt was preparing me for that evening.
A few weeks later I resumed my running routine, with only an occasional swim from then until … now.
During the intervening years (The Firstborn turns 32 next month) I ran, just 20 to 30 minutes, more or less regularly, until my early fifties, when my knees finally objected loudly and consistently to the point that I quit. Around that time I started taking weekly yoga classes, eventually developing a daily practice. I also had a bicycle on an indoor stand in the basement, so I cycled for about 10 minutes every morning.
Then came the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Those of us lucky enough to have some free time (not health care and emergency providers, not parents with children at home) developed some creative ideas for using it (sourdough, for one). I decided to try running again, and my knees were okay with it. Now that I was 65 my pace had slowed, but gradually I was able to regain a bit of speed. Daily runs and yoga classes on Zoom became my pandemic exercise routine.
But my awareness was growing that I needed to build muscle strength. Using short routines from a workout app and my husband’s 3-pound hand weights, I did a little strength training, not much, because it was boring as well as uncomfortable.
Then in early fall of 2021 I visited The Firstborn, aka my Dear Daughter, in Los Angeles. She took me to my first Pure Barre class, which I’ve described here and here. That turned out to be my ideal exercise—intense, low impact, engaging all the muscle groups, while also improving body awareness, balance, and flexibility. Pure Barre is national; if you’re over 40, check out this article.
My sixties have gifted me the wisdom to pay attention to those instincts and intimations from within, of things I need to know though I might rather not know. Such as, I needed to balance running with strength building, which my 20-something-year-old self ignored. And now, my need to level up the cardio work.
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
This week I swam for the third time in a month, at the recently opened public aquatics center about a mile from my house. I noticed that my dread of the approach had lessened somewhat, and I think that’s mainly due to my solving some of the little problems that crop up in the starting of any new routine.
Now I know where I’m likely to find open parking spots on the street, so I turn in that direction and don’t have to backtrack. I know the procedure for checking in at the front desk and how to get to the locker room. I’ve re-memorized the ritual of my cheap padlock (“Turn RIGHT 3 times. Stop at 1st number. Turn LEFT one full turn, …”). I’ve learned to leave only my valuables and clothes in the locker and take my bag with towel and shampoo to the pool, so I can go straight to the shower after my swim.
I mention these small, probably boring details because they are the things that can tip me over the edge and into the sweet landing of, “I’m not going to do this today.” Which is sweet only for a short time, then come the long-term consequences.
Slipping into the water felt a little easier than last time. The first lap of the 25-meter pool actually felt energizing. Then, of course, my body’s warmup response (“This is HARD!!”) set in for the next several laps. However, after about four laps I started to feel in the groove, acclimated to the aerobic stress. The middle laps are always the most challenging mentally, and then my mantra is “The only way out of this is through it.”
But when I had done ten laps and had only five more to go, everything felt good. Well, it was still work, but more like work I was born to do. At the end of my planned fifteen laps, which I knew would take me about 30 minutes (swimmers, you don’t have to tell me that I’m incredibly slow), I swam one more lap, just for fun.
“We are what we repeatedly do. … Therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
