Like a mermaid.

I learned to swim when I was a baby. My mom taught swim lessons, and she would take me to the pool with her, and I would swim. I can remember watching an old 8mm film that my family took of a family vacation in Florida when I was a year or two old, and I was paddling around the hotel swimming pool. Happy as a lark. I swam on my first swim team when I was 5. Our team suits were so awesome. They were red white and blue with dolphins. I remember being so small, we had to tie the straps together with shoe strings. The photo of me wearing our team sweatshirt looks like I’m wearing a floor length dress instead of a sweatshirt. I was completely spoiled on that team. I’d run around bugging all the older kids. At swim meets I’d eat cherry jello straight out of the box with my finger, and walk around the whole evening with a bright red finger. I also had my events written on my arm. (My first coach is now my parents GP). My first practice meet was in a pool without lane lines. I had to swim 25 backstroke, and I went from lane 3 to the wall in lane6 and hit my head. A childhood friend who still belongs to the swim club told me I still had a record form when I was swimming there – 30 years ago. The first few years, we just swam 25 yards and meters. One day we went to Coney Island for a meet. The pool was 50 meters. It was so scary. I think it might have been 200 meters. I was maybe 8. Somehow I survived my races. But I don’t think I liked it! Then I started swimming in the winter too. I was swimming all year round, with a few weeks off at the end of each season. Not every day during my first few winter seasons. But I kept improving. My little local coach came to our house one night and told us that we were losing our pool time at the start of the year. And she thought I should go swim at the Marlins (she coached there too). I was terrified. This was a BIG TIME team, and I was just small potatoes. Somehow she convinced my parents, who convinced me to give it a try. My first practice was over Christmas break. It was long course (my first long course practice, ever.) I was shaking before practice. Really, I was never so nervous. The first practice had a main set of 10x400 IM. Yep. I did them. I didn’t die. I almost died. I know I cried inside my goggles the whole practice. I didn’t want to go back the next day. Mom and dad convinced me to go. We did 40x50 fly. I cried some more. I know I had to cheat to finish the set. I finished the week. Then two weeks, then 5 years. Swimming was my world. I met so many great friends. Got to travel a bit. Learned how to suck it up big time, suffer, and win. And lose. It was life. It was fun. It was hard. It was painful. It was my life.

I swam in college too. Although I was teetering on the brink of burnout. But swimming in college was even better. Maybe not the swimming. I had few PR’s by then (in the 400im!). And motivation was up and down, but the girls I swam with were my family, and they got me through 3 years with lots of smiles and laughs.

Then I got to retire! By then I was ready, and so happy. I didn’t swim for many years. I didn’t even know how to ‘play’ in a pool with the nieces and nephews. I have a photo of me doing a flip off a small diving board in my early 20’s. I was a dork. But even though I didn’t do any swim training, when I got in the water, I was like a mermaid. I was so at home in the water. In a pool, in a lake, in the ocean. The ocean was great. Swimming, snorkeling, diving with the fish. With the sharks. With the turtles. Dolphins. What a magnificent water world!

The years roll by. And now I swim again, and have been back in the pool for years. My training is up and down, on and off, but sometimes I can still surprise myself when I blast a 1:03 from a push in a workout. But, really, I don’t like to train hard in the pool. I like to be relaxed in a pool, just swim with enough effort to feel fast, but not too much to feel tired. Like a mermaid!

Today I have a swim workout. It’s kind of hard. No, it’s not kind of hard. It is hard. Hard for me. Lots of freestyle. Short intervals. That means, swim fast, feel tired. Mermaids don’t sprint around at max heart rate. They flow through the water, enjoying the movement and the freedom. I’m not going to get to be a mermaid tonight.