So....I get uncomfortable when people make a fuss about my swimming...I do!!
I have swam since I have been 8 years old. It's like walking for me. I just do it and it's easy.
I learned to swim in our pool in the backyard and then my mom put us in the competitive club when I was 8 years old. Every Mon/Wed/Fri we would drive the hour into Saskatoon from the farm for swim lessons and back again. A year or so of that and my dad realized that the $$ he was spending on gas was a mortgage payment!! So they bought a little house in the city and we moved...the city in the winter and on the farm in the summer time.
I get amused when the triathlete gang comments on my swim times...cause believe me, I was not all that "fast" when I was kid. I made it to Nationals only once, I was never picked for any teams, always on the "B" relay, never won any medals. But I always liked the social part (some things never change!!) and we travelled all over the country to meets which was kind of cool as no other kids at school were flying to Toronto for the weekend...
Anyway, I have super mixed feelings about my time in the pool. We would train 4 hours a day. Two before school and two after school. We would log about 10,000 meters per day in our peak training weeks. I did not learn how to play any other sports...like volleyball, I am horrid on a basketball court, I can't skate, I could not throw a baseball if my life depended on it, the only kids I knew were the ones at the pool! I have sworn up and down on my children's lives they will NEVER do this!! They will experience everything! It was alot of pressure and it took me a very long time to realize that the pool is not my life...just because I am not a top-notch age-group swimmer, does not mean I can't do well at other things. On top of that, my coach for about 9 out of the 10 years used to tell us we were "fat"!! Jenn will back me up on this one....he totally messed with our heads and as young, impressionable girls, his tactics were just WAY OFF!!!
It took me a VERY LONG time to be alright with who I was outside the pool. I am pretty sure my parents divorce was largely due to the time my mom spent with the swim club. (in fact I am 100% positive but that is a story for another time....)
On the positive side, swimming taught me lots and lots about dedicating yourself to something you really want to do. Organizing my time. I learned to love running through swimming as we had to do lots of dryland training. Hard work ethics...the a-hole coach used to make me swim with the boys as he called me a "work horse" and good at pacing, we would do sets like 20 x 200m or my favorite was 100 x 100m on about 1:20...
Anyway, I steered clear of any water until well after university was done. Stepped back into it very slowly about 8 years ago...then got asked to be on a team for a triathlon and shall we say, the rest is history!!
Now if I could only get good on that bike....
3 comments:
Great post Kelly! Honest and open and thoughtful.
We all know of course, that it was lots of hard work that got you there. Not some magical stroke secret.
Sport should be a positive thing, and I'm glad you eventually found the positive things. Too many people get their heads into the space of "I'm the fastest so I'm the best." But except for Phelps, this year, there is always someone that can swim faster.
This is actually one of my pet peeves, is the world view that second-place person is merely the first loser. I can't accept that the person who is half an eye-blink behind the winner is a loser in any rational sense of the word.
The bike will come. Hang in there.
I had no doubt you paid a price for that rock star swimming skill. You should enjoy the reward now! Being an o.k competitive swimmer makes you a super-fantastic-oh-my-god-how-do-you-do-it triathlon swimmer. Enjoy!! You earned it!
And the biking takes tiiiiime. And miles and more time and more miles. I am still not a great cyclist but I like it more than I used to and that alone is progress :-)
yeah...member how he use to pinch our asses - when they hung out of a "we buy them too small so there is no drag" swimsuits and tell us to stay out of the fridge - i think at that time my bodyfat was ...a whopping 11%.
And I find that I am thankful that I can spend limited time in the pool and be an ok swimmer. I have no desire to train excessively in the pool as it brings me no joy - the day I quit swimming at 15 I never went back until last year!!! I hated it THAT much when I was done.I have no desire to be a fast swimmer in a triathlon - just to get it done. Honestly, I have no idea how you can take yourself to the pool as much as you do... my love for it just is not there! Except when I spy you in an open water swim hitting the buoys :) Then, I enjoy it!!lol
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