Flopping around in the water

Along with promising not to post loads of food pictures, I promise not to post too many inane details of my workouts. I have four triathlons on my calendar for the summer and the Chicago Marathon in the fall, and most of my workout log comments range somewhere between the scintillating "felt tired" to the thrilling "felt good!" I'll spare you from that, I swear.

But last night, I had a very pleasant swim. It was one of those workouts where you feel so comfortable and relaxed that you just want to add on a little more...and then a little more after that. I loved it.

I wanted to write about that because this has been a long process.  As a triathlon coach I know says, swimming is my third-best sport. My well-intentioned mom signed me up for swimming lessons in the next town over when I was a kid, and I failed Level 2 over and over, until my Level 2 classmates started to get so young that I felt really sheepish.

(And there's no neat segue for this story, but it must be told. I have also never been a fan of lake swimming, primarily because of my oddly deep fear of weeds and the things that lurk within them. One summer, my friend Sara was also training for a triathlon, and she coaxed me into doing an open water swim with her for practice.  We went to Lake Nokomis a lake that shall remain nameless on a gorgeous weekend morning and waded into the deep end of the public swimming area. I was scared, but started to get more comfortable with each step out. "I'm feeling good!" I remember telling Sara, and got ready to put my face in the hip-deep water and start the freestyle laps. Then, an arm's length away from me, I saw this thing poking out of the water. It was a muskie head, attached to a huge muskie body, and he was downright leering at me with his nasty teeth. Obviously, I ran screaming out of the water, with Sara running and screaming a second behind me, and we sat on the beach and watched this odd fish cruise around with its head above water for a long time. I have not gone swimming in that lake since then. I do not sign up for triathlons that involve this lake.)

I've probably done 8-10 triathlons, but for the first handful, I'd freak out in every swim. The swim was always a long and terrifying and frustrating exercise in flopping around in the water in a full panic before settling down enough to get the swim done on my back or on my side, so I wouldn't have to put my face in the water. My main swimming goal became minimizing the duration of the freak-out.

Obviously, that's not really conducive to even marginal triathlon success.  A couple of years ago, I started visiting the pool more to build up my skills and endurance, but staring at a black line at the bottom of the pool lap after lap isn't really adequate practice for swimming in a lake with dozens or hundreds of people kicking around you. That comfort tolerance just came with practice for me.  Finally, last year, in my last two triathlons of the season, I was over the moon that I finished the swims without freaking out at all. My last triathlon was my first Olympic-distance triathlon, and finishing the mile-long swim, freestyle the whole way and feeling happy, is one of my proudest athletic achievements of my life. I came out of the water and started running toward the transition to the bike, saw my mom on the sidelines, pumped my fist and yelled in the most corny way possible, "I did it, Mom!"

By no means would I even call myself a strong swimmer yet, by the way. But each summer, I hope I'm getting a little bit closer.  I hope I'd even pass Level 2 now.