My Dad taught me to swim when I was 5 years old. I watched him do the breaststroke wearing a mask and picked it up immediately. I was thrilled! After being the little kid who could only splash around in the shallows I became a little underwater frog exploring the bottom of the pool, the “deep” and everywhere in between.
Later that summer I had early morning swim lessons with a bunch of kids my age. I remember it was freezing in the early morning hours. I learned some variations of floating and kicking. They probably tried to teach me freestyle and backstroke too – but those were beyond my capabilities at the time. Still, from that summer forward, I was hooked on swimming (ha).
I begged my parents to take me swimming every summer day. I remember trips to Tuscarora State park where we’d trudge down the long gravel road from the parking lot to sit on the man made beach and swim in the brownish yellow lake water. You couldn’t see through the water to the bottom, but swimming there was fun because we the lake was in the middle of the woods. My imagination ran wild about fish, Loch Ness monster and anything else that might be lurking in the dark water beyond the swimming area.
By the time I was in 2nd grade, I would walk with my friends from my Aunt Essie’s home to the Bungalow pool all the way on the other side of town (1.5 miles seemed far back then) to swim all afternoon. Then, we’d wearily trudge home for dinner being baked by the afternoon sun, exhausted from swimming all day. Once I learned how to ride a bike, that became my preferred way to get to the pool.
Then we moved to Pittsburgh. There was no public pools in my neighborhood. I couldn’t believe it! It was yet another reason I hated Pittsburgh. Desperate to swim, I begged my mom to sign me up for fall swimming lessons at the local high school. I’d wake up early on Saturday mornings, make myself breakfast and then trudge several miles in the freezing cold up the world’s steepest hill for my early morning morning class. The class was OK. I learned how to swim freestyle and backstroke. More importantly, I got to swim!
Luckily for me, I my summers in Tamaqua staying with my Aunt Essie so I had plenty of swim time at the Bungalow, Tuscarora and a bunch of pools, streams, watering holes, lakes, and rivers we would visit.
The summer I graduated from high school, I read about the IronMan Triathlon and was inspired to try swimming laps. I started going to a county pool 3x a week evening. At first I struggled. I could do breaststroke forever. But swimming freestyle across the 50 yard pool left me gasping for breathe. I envied the old ladies (in their 30s & 40s) swim lap after lap effortlessly while I floundered ad vowed to someday be able to swim as good as them. By the end of the summer, I could.
I loved swimming so much I continued year round for the next few years. I even become a lifeguard for two summers. I stopped after I met my future wife, started working full-time and had my hands full with being a husband, stepfather, part-time student and full-time adult. Although my wife and I spent summer weekends and vacations on the water at lakes, pools and beaches, I didn’t return to dedicated lap swimming for 30 years. There wasn’t enough time for me to make this a priority.
I started lap swimming again shortly before my wife died 5 years ago. It was a way for me to try to find some peace of mind during the worst time of my life. Other than a 2 month hiatus for my ill-fated road trip, I’ve been swimming every day since.
I consider myself a good swimmer. Although mostly self-taught, I have great endurance, decent form and am very comfortable in the water. I’ve logged over 100,000 laps and 2,000 miles in the past 5 years.
As noted in my last post, I was inspired to improve my technique by a really smooth swimmer at my pool. This led me down a rathole of watching YouTube videos and then applying what I watched during the next day.
After making significant, noticeable improvements over just a few days, I realized there is so much I don’t know about swimming technique.
So, I decided to hire a professional coach – sort of. Actually, I bought the SwimPro App created by the coach whose videos I had been watching the most.
I decided that have plateaued doing it “my way”. Instead of continuing to do exactly the same thing I’ve been doing for years, I’ll follow a professional’s direction. After all, he’s a competitive master swimmer, a professional coach and was a competitive collegiate swimmer. He surely knows better than me.
It has been a blast. I’ve incorporated fins, new strokes, different techniques, drills and paces. It’s a full mental and physical challenge to adjust. I’m back to swimming on the plain of suckitude in early learning mode.
But I kind of like being here because I know get past it in time.
