warning: swim rant ahead!

this morning i got up at the crack o’ "i don’t want to be up this early" and headed over to the pool. our usual Y pool is still closed, so i am over at the college, which actually has a much nicer outdoor pool … but i have to pay every time i go and heck, i’m already paying for a gym membership … but this is a rant about my swim performance … not the price of admission.

for some ungodly reason, this year the glorious multi-lane LCM “fitness” pool is closed to the public (open to college employees) on monday and wednesday mornings. so the rest of us need to squeeze into the 25 yard “splash” pool … which is kept at umpteen degrees and is about waist deep. it’s still a beautiful pool. the water is clear and doesn’t reek of chlorine and swimming outside … well, that’s just the bomb no matter what. that being said … the past two times i have swum in the splash pool, my times have been s-l-o-w and my effort has been h-a-r-d! not a combo this already struggling swimmer is happy with.

i know a guy whose real science smart. one day i was telling him how much faster i felt in the deep end of the “fitness” pool at the college than i do at my Y. he explained something about deep water, the return of energy, blah, blah, blah is what i think he said … but basically he confirmed that i probably did feel faster (a relative term) in deeper water. ergo … it makes sense that i am dog-slow in the shallow, shallow water, no?

whether it’s science or lack of talent, them’s the facts. i was slow. and i was breathless. i’m not sure there was a discernible difference between my “easy” 25 and my “fast” 25. they all felt the same, like swimming in molasses.

it was frustrating, though not goggle ripping frustrating. you know THOSE swims … right? the ones where you rip off your goggles in frustration. ready to pull yourself out of the pool and storm off into the locker room muttering under your breath about 25’s on the :XX and how you prefer duathlon anyway, dagnabbit!

no, it wasn’t that bad. it was just slow. i don’t know if i am maturing as a woman and an athlete or if i’m just getting tired, but i decided to just not fight it. embrace my inner snail and swim my swim. the clock would continue to go round and round and eventually those laps would add up to 2400 and i would be done, i knew that.

i have those moments where i release myself from the struggle. they’re nice, though i always have that niggling question if that was the way to go or if I shoulda HTFU’d? but ya know, for me, sometimes loosening the grip on my expectation is HTFUing … it’s being strong enough to trust in the process.

^..^