Being in the Swim of Things Keeps Her Sane
It’s 5:30 a.m. It is still dark. I feel as if energy has been drained from body and soul. My eyes find it natural to close, so I close them and savor the feeling for a few moments.
Then I get out of bed anyway, as I have for most of 20 years, to go to the pool. For Masters Swimming, workouts are always early, sometimes at 5 a.m., sometimes at 6 a.m. In 20 years, I’ve never gone more than one week without swimming, even if only in a kidney-shaped pond, a mountain water hole meant for trout, or a steaming bath in England with no lane lines and everybody breast-stroking.
How do I do it? It depends on which stage of life we’re speaking about.
Some years ago BC (Before Children), I swam in the early evening with a masters team. We were the Killer Guppies. It started out as a way to stay fit and meet new people. We were all new or nearly new college graduates. It became a social gathering. After practice, we’d stop for pizza, tell jokes and plan our next meet. It was a friendship, a bond, created through swimming that motivated us to make workouts tough, to challenge our pace and to continually improve our techniques. Within a few years, we did other sports together, such as running and cycling. Eventually, many of us became nationally ranked amateur triathletes. Swimming brought us together, and our friendships carried and sustained us with greater challenges. I experienced France as I raced behind, way behind, a French cyclist down cobblestone streets. I hiked Mt. Fuji, Japan, after swimming the first World Masters Competition. I traveled the Rocky Mountains by foot, in half-marathons and a marathon, and I swam against the ocean current in post-hurricane weather off the cost of South Carolina.
Life is different now. Work and family have taken over. With three children and a husband who goes out of town from time to time, it is challenging to carve out time to swim. I’ve had to learn to adjust. I don’t always get to swim with a group, not even every day, but the key to sane time is child care.
One recent evening, I waited anxiously for the baby-sitter. The night workout was 7 p.m. and I hate to miss the warm-up. The sitter arrived, apologetically, 15 minutes late, and I darted away not thinking about how tired I was. I only thought about how good I would feel afterward. I missed the warmup, but regardless of the rainy conditions, once in the pool I felt and tasted the cool flow of the water against my skin. It was a refreshing change of pace as the water washed away the clutter in my mind.
People, possessions and jobs come and go, but swimming is still the core of my being. It sustained me through my first job, through law school, through career changes, through childbirth, during travel and, last year, through the death of my mother. The pool is my refuge, my peace, my inspiration and my joy. I have no simple and fast formula for maintaining fitness. It became a habit that developed over time. There were short-term goals and long-term goals to always reach for. Now the goal is to get to the pool. There were the friends and coaches to motivate. Now, a break from the children is the motivator.
I swim because the routine workout has become, and is, the foundation of my soul.
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