Let's talk about swimming

I've been talking a lot about biking and running this summer, but aside from my "I quietly freaked out on my first open water swim" post, I haven't really broached the subject of swimming.  Perhaps it's because swimming and I have had such a long relationship together.  We have way more of a history than running or biking.  With running, I only have a little over 4 short years of memories, and with biking, only 4 short months; but with swimming, I have a whole lifetime of memories.  We've loved each other, we've hated each other, and we've co-existed without having any sort of feelings toward each other.

So to talk about swimming, I have to delve deep into the past.  And a little while ago, I decided that I didn't really want to talk about the past anymore.  But nonetheless, especially when it comes to swimming, the past tends to sneak up on me and remind me that it hasn't gone anywhere.  I've tried to ignore it, but every now and then when I'm swimming (like during my 2370 yard swim this morning), something will happen--I"ll feel a familiar old ache, or use a muscle required in swimming that I haven't used in a while--and I'll get flashbacks of my lifetime of swimming.

Therefore, today I tell the story of Tessa's Lifetime, Up-and-Down Relationship with Swimming (some of these hazy memory "facts" may possibly be disputed by my mother, but I tell the story as I remember it).

Early Childhood:

According to my mother, swimming and I first met when I was less than 6 months old, taken to the pool, and dunked underwater.  I'd imagine I learned to hold my breath fairly quickly.  I obviously don't have any memories from this time, but I've been told that I learned to swim very quickly as a child, and my fishy nature emerged fast.  I'm not sure how much time I actually spent swimming in my first 4 years of life, because we were living on a farm in Kentucky and I have no idea what our pool access was.  But I'm pretty sure it was a somewhat prevalent part of my early childhood years.

Elementary School Years:

The summer I was 4, we moved from the Kentucky farm to Richmond, VA where our family joined a neighborhood pool.  In Virginia, it is hot in the summer and everybody belongs to a pool.  Typically, when I think back with nostalgia on my childhood, the vast majority of my elementary school memories take place at this pool.  I grew up at this pool.  I was a Granite Marlin, and I loved it.

Throughout my elementary school summers, I spent most every day at this pool.  We'd get there for swim practice from 8am-10am, then the pool would open to the non-swim team members.  We'd stay through lunch and all the way up to dinner, hanging out with friends, swimming, taking an occasional tennis lesson, taking some diving lessons, bugging our parents for money for the snack bar, playing Sharks and Minnows in the diving well, or inventing Little Mermaid games in the pool, and getting ridiculously and unintentionally tan.

In the summer off-season (i.e. the school year), I belonged to year round teams.  I have no idea of the exact years of these teams, but I remember at some point belonging to at least 2 different teams--practicing with one before school in the morning, and one after school in the evenings.  Had I continued on this track, I think I had the potential to go pretty far with my swimming.  I was a good swimmer--I won my races when I needed to and did the laps and drills I was supposed to.  But I was a lazy swimmer.  My coaches yelled at me for not trying hard enough, not pushing myself enough.  I just didn't have the competitive motivation.  Just getting by was enough for me.

So, after a few years of overloading teams and workouts and meets, at one point I remember just wanting to quit the year round teams.  And then I would just swim laps with my mom at the YMCA in the morning before school (and then stop at McDonald's for biscuits and gravy on the way to school...oh the south).  I remember that even though I didn't want to do all the swim teams, I still loved swimming.

Middle School:

The summer after 6th grade, we moved from Richmond, VA, up to Rochester, NY.  I have a very vivid memory of my last swim practice with the Granite Marlins, when my coach Ted (who had coached me through endless summers) pulled me to the side, grabbed my wrists, looked me hard in the eyes, and told me to join a team in New York, to not stop swimming, because I had so much going for me.  I remember being taken aback, not realizing he cared that much or that I mattered that much.  I wonder now how many times I disappointed him during those years.  Because I just remember him yelling at me.  A lot.

Anyways, I got up to NY and did not join a year round team.  I joined my middle school team and suddenly loved being one of the best on the team.  In elementary school, there were always people better, but in middle school, on the school team, I was a star.  And it felt awesome.  I got lots of PRs, won races, and rediscovered my love for competition.  For 2 years.

High School:

But then high school hit.  And I wasn't the best on the varsity team.  I was still good, but I definitely wasn't one of the top swimmers.   So I struggled through it for 2 years, until we got a new swim coach, who decided that we were losing lots of points for not having divers.  So I signed right up.  We recruited about 4 other girls my junior year to dive, but by senior year, I was the swim team's lone diver.  I was tall, I was gangly, I was awkward, but I was the diver.

Backwards pike somesault.  Look at the blurry speed.

 

Super cool twisting something.

Then I graduated from high school with no intentions of continuing swimming in the future.

My last meet as a senior.   Standing poised during my
send-off speech.  So incredibly young looking.

College:

Although swimming and I had a rocky, tumultuous road.  I couldn't quite stay away.  In high school, I had worked summers as a lifeguard at local town home complex pools.  Then in college, after freshman year in NYC, when I needed to find a job, lifeguarding was the first thing I turned to.  I found a job at a community center near Battery Park, lifeguarded for a year, and then got certified to teach swim lessons.  I taught swim lessons for about 2 years, my junior and senior years of college, and then quit when I got my first teaching job.  While lifeguarding, I'd take my breaks occasionally in the water doing laps.  I'm pretty sure that seldom occurrence was the only exercise I got in college.  

Post-College

Swimming and I had a long separation after I quit teaching lessons.  The past 6 years, the only times I've turned to swimming have been when I'm injured.  Swimming was my go-to sport when my ankle and or knee decided it couldn't handle running for a while.

But now this summer, thanks to my tri-training friends, I've found myself doing a lot of swimming.  And not just in pools, but in lakes, with a wetsuit.  Like a real swimmer or something.  And I've found, as always, that swimming comes back quickly for me.  My old, reliable, forgotten friend.  Swimming is always there for me when I need it.  And I find that the more I swim, the more I rehash these old swimming memories and the life that swimming and I have had together.  Because as much as I absolutely love running, and am coming to love biking, swimming was my first.  Swimming has the nostalgic hold on my heart.  We may have more rocky roads ahead of us, but I'll always know that swimming will be there for me when I need it.  And as I embark down a new road towards triathlons, I am certainly happy to have swimming as an old friend.