I am a success in and around the pool. Sounds cocky, but it’s true. I feel most comfortable, ironically, in a Speedo with my Swedes digging into my eye sockets. I am good at swimming. I am good at coaching swimming. I’ve had swimmers take themselves further than their natural ability should have. Swimming is a sport, unlike any that I’ve played, that makes the most sense to me. It’s a sport where nothing but your own hard work determines success. I wish that I had realized this earlier. I wish that I had known early on what hard work was, what it feels like and where it can take you. Swimming is why I could go to college loan free, why I got to travel around the country and how I found my fiancée. I got to swim in the fastest swim meet in the world, twice. I got to practice with the best that ever was, is and will be.
Unfortunately, I never knew what it meant to work hard in the water. Swimming has always came natural to me. I was born with short legs, a long torso, long arms and big feet. More or less, I was built to swim. These are the facts.
Also a fact, Crossfit, and more so, Olympic weightlifting has taught me what it means to work hard. To struggle with things that I was never meant to be good at. I wasn’t born to be strong. I was born with fast-twitch muscles, true, but they are best used to propel myself through the water, not a weight over my head.
For these reasons, I am getting back in the pool. I don’t know what’s going to come of it. What could start as a casual 5,000 a couple times a week could turn into serious practices, joining a team and pushing my ass off to make it to OT’s in 2012; hopefully in different events as I am way too old to swim the 200fly.
I certainly won’t give up the heavy lifting though as I feel that my being a more complete athlete, meaning stronger, would transfer well into my swimming. If I can work my schedule around these issues, I plan on following the Mikes Gym website 4-5 days a week (maybe filling in some months with CFFB or even the Main Page) in the mornings and swimming in the afternoons. There is a oly-lift competition in Rhode Island this summer that Watertown Sue informed me about that I am really looking forward to competing in.
I know that I can’t go the distance like I used to (don’t ever expect a good 1500 out of me) but I feel like I can still bring it in the sprints a la Dara Torres. Anyway, I have a promise to keep to Oh Mary about giving it one more try.
The only obstacle is becoming a resident of Cheshire so that I can go swimming.
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