From not drowning to swimming

I still remember the first day I jumped in the pool to practice my swim for the first race.  My pool has a rope tether you attach to your waist so you can swim forever without having to do laps.  I lasted only a couple of minutes and was out of breath and had to stop.  Within a couple of days I stretched that to 5 minutes and then to 20.  I figured I was home free!

I went to a lake to try out my new wetsuit and try to swim 1500 meters.  The manager told me what constituted 400 meters in the water, but I didn’t really understand her.  I swam one loop and was sucking wind.  Even in the wetsuit I was having a hard time.  I think I did 2 more laps before calling it quits.  Finishing in less than 30 minutes (stopping at least once a lap to breath) I knew I could do the swim.

Everything was different at the race.  First and foremost the distances look daunting.  If you go to a track and look at it from a swim perspective it doesn’t look that bad.  But if you imagine a loop four times as big it does.  I was pretty freaked out, and my heart was pounding before the swim.  It took me a long time and I had to stop at least once to regain composure.  Note to self, that was not 400 meters at the first lake!

Now fast forward 9 months and things are very different.  I swim for an hour or more twice a week.  I can still get my heart rate and breathing up pretty easily, but by the end of the swim it is my arms and shoulders that are tired.

I try not to think about how long a swim looks come race day as I know it is intimidating.  It’s pretty simple really:  put your face in the water, start swimming, and stop at the end of the loop.  I focus on keeping my breathing under control, and not burning out my arms too quickly.  I figure I could go about an hour like that, although it does get kind of boring!

My swimming took a turn at the last race.  With the extra experience I was able to think a little bit more about what was going on around me.  I actually drafted off of a couple of people.  Once, when I was getting kicked too much, I moved to his 8 o’clock, which is the ideal draft position.  People talk about drafting on the swim, now I can do it too!

I’m pretty confident in the water, at least with a wetsuit on.  At least one of my next two races will be too warm for a wetsuit.  I look forward to that challenge because now I know I can swim!