Monday, March 31, 2014

Swimming: My Strugglebus

My mom sent me a picture talking about people who started working out and are trying to make a lifestyle change.  People who start a New Year’s Resolution in hopes of losing the weight they recently put on, or hoping to finish an event of some sort. Statistics are not in their favor; most people who pick up an exercise program quit before they can really see any results.

I wish those people didn’t get discouraged so easily and knew that everybody who exercises regularly was a beginner at some point.  At one point, I was in the same boat. When I first began training for triathlons swimming was an absolute joke. I had to teach myself how to swim and this is my story:

Heading into college I thought it would be fun to participate in a lap swimming class since nothing like that had been offered for me in high school. I showed up on day one in a pair of swim trunks and without a pair of goggles; I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  My teacher said that we would all go at our own pace and that some people might swim eight laps while others might swim 34 laps.  With my cockiness I figured I would be way up in front doing the 34 laps.  To any swimmers reading this, I had never done any type of lap swimming before in my life; you can laugh at me at this point because what you are thinking is exactly what happened.

Lap swimming was terrible.  I ended up being the worst in class.  For the first week I didn’t even swim; I just kicked with a kick board the whole time.  When I did finally start “swimming” I had no success at all.  It took me a few weeks until I realized that you were supposed to exhale while your face was underwater. Every day of class I got in the corner in my own lane and was determined to get my distance in each day (which was nothing close to the 34 laps the teacher had mentioned) while hiding from the people who actually could swim. 

Swimming was so uncomfortable for me.  25 yards was a feat to accomplish for me and it took a couple days until I could swim the length of the pool without stopping.  Then I had to stop and rest for about a minute between each length. Arms flailing, I would sprint across and wouldn’t feel safe until I got to the other side.  The fear of drowning in water that only came up to my waist was a real fear for me. My view on swimming changed drastically.

After class had finished I tried to swim on my own as I began planning to race my first triathlon.  I still couldn’t swim more than 25 yards at a time.  I would be in the pool just watching all these people swimming so effortlessly across the pool, using all different types of strokes, equipment, and doing these amazing flip turns which I thought were AMAZING!  Then there was me, standing in four foot high water breathless from one length. I felt as if I didn’t belong in the same pool as them.

 I remember one Sunday night standing in the pool, looking at the clock thinking about how pathetic this was.  I hadn’t gotten any better since class was over.  25 yards was still a long distance for me, how was I going to swim 500 yards in a race? I thought about quitting; what was I even trying to prove? I am the slowest swimmer in the pool right now, why do I keep coming? When was this going to get easier? When would I begin enjoying it? Couldn’t I be using my time for something I was actually good at? Am I really enjoying this suffering I’m putting myself through? All my frustration was building up and I just wasn’t seeing any progress.

I wish I could go back to that night and figure out what it was that kept me going.  Honestly, I have no idea why I got back in the pool afterwards; I was demoralized. Nevertheless, I kept swimming, each day was another day of dreading water and counting down the lengths until I reached the distance I needed.  Slowly, I was able to swim 50 yards without stopping and kept working up to 100 yards. 

One day while I was swimming I came up to the wall around 100 yards and thought to myself, “I could swim another length,  I wonder how much further I can go?” so I kept swimming.  Excitement started to build as I reached a new length that I was able to go without stopping; the whole time I kept telling myself to remain calm and relax so I didn’t suddenly realize that I needed air (At this point I would like to note that to remain calm in those early phases I would try to visualize a meadow. This is not a joke). That day I made it 200 yards without stopping.  My confidence sky rocketed and the next day I went in and swam 1,000 yards without stopping.  Within 24 hours I went from 100 yards to 1,000 yards; something just clicked. It took over four months of struggling but I finally was able to swim for more than just a length!

Then came the technique work. I learned how to do those majestic flip turns and now I am pretty decent at faking the other types of strokes as well. Through the years there have been a lot of people help me in one way or another. This is a list of everybody I can think of since when I first started:
  • Matt Ampleman
  • Jessie Blakely
  • Andrew Bennett
  • Vako Darjania
  • Amanda Jacobsen
  • Laura Jones
  • Brian Lentz
  • Alex Libin
  • Justin Metzler
  • Rob Miecznikowski
  • Kyle Noser
  • Dave Scott (yes, tri-nerds “The Man”)
  • Kyle Siefers
  • Matt Zepeda

Now, I swim up to six times a week.  Swimming has become part of my daily routine so much so that I feel off all day if I miss it.  I enjoy jumping in that water at 5:45am and feeling my arms pull through the water.  The fear of drowning trying to get across the pool is no longer a fear. I like to think that I’m now that person I used to gaze at and wonder how they get across the pool with such ease.  People have asked me if I swam in high school; they’ve asked if I swim competitively; I’ve even been pointed out from a group as being one of the fastest swimmers in the room.

The truth is I have improved a lot since when I started.  My 500 time is nearly three times faster than when I first did a race. The distance I first did when I started is now my warm-up. To say it was easy to get to where I am now would be a joke.  The amount of times I wanted to quit swimming I can’t even count.  If I would have quit way back within the first week when I was too scared to put my face in, or the next week when I couldn’t make it across the pool, or the months after that when I couldn’t make it further than 25 yards, or even that Sunday night when I was thinking it was useless and pathetic I never would have kept at the sport I now love.