The alarm blares in my ear scaring me awake. I’ve promised myself I will only let it go off once. If I don’t get up I’m only disappointing myself. That and I still feel bad that my college roommate, Kelly, had to listen to it go off this early in the morning… O’Dark 30 we use to call it, and it still is.
Practice, day 2. (May 2012)
I never ever ever thought I’d be here again. I’m 37 almost 38 years old, and much …. doughier …than I was the last time I did this for “real”.
I slipped into my swimsuit, grabbed my bag and hopped into the car, and headed to the pool. Sometimes swimming on autopilot isn’t such a bad thing.
There is something about the order and disciple of a workout on the whiteboard and a coach on deck swinging his stopwatch that makes this real, more real than swimming laps at the gym. Both are swimming, but this… this is what my heart has longed for.
The challenge and accountability of the team. The Clock. The Coach.
To be able to look up at someone and say, ‘ What do you want me to do?” and for there to be an answer – ” I want you to work on your hand placement – get those arms shoulder width apart, you’ll have more leverage.” I’m learning again. I’m being coached again. I’m loving, I mean really loving being in the water again in this way.
Speaking my truth to get to my goal.
I’ve told my coach about the time away from the water, the screws and the hip pains, and the fear and caution. I think he sees something in me that he is excited about – that he wants to develop. He has a swimmer that listens, wants to be coached, and responds….. all coaches want that. I know, I’ve been one. He watches me swim, studying me, my stroke, where it can improve, where it can be more efficient. He says things like, ” Beautiful, Terrific, that looked GREAT!”
These words reach deep deep deep into my heart, into a place I thought had disappeared. It awakes something – an ember, the last remaining ember of a fire that used to burn in my soul. A passion I never understood, it was greater than me, and it was different from anything I had ever experienced it was a love of sport, a feeling of fitting into a body that always seemed too long, too awkward. In the pool, I have always felt at home and graceful. Long long ago after I got hurt I told myself someday I would be strong enough to be able to compete at the Masters level… and in that maybe I would be able to go faster than I did as a college athlete. I was a much younger woman then. That dream died as I got worse and older. I’ll never be that fast again. At least I can compete I told myself until I stopped even hoping for that, I thought the fire was out.
Finding Realistic Goals
Tim saw it, he knew it wasn’t gone. He knew my passion and desire were still there. He’d often cautioned and regulate me as I started to swim again, trying to keep me from pushing as hard as he could see that ember wanting to push. He cautioned me to remember my age, and my current “condition”, and to not try to be something I was 20 years ago. I’d laugh at him in my head – who was he kidding, I’m not that woman anymore – I don’t have those capabilities any longer… I could never dream to be that swimmer again. As far as I was concerned I was useless and washed up from being any value to a team at any age: my college coach made that very clear the day I signed the papers releasing me from my scholarship.
Today, after practice my new coach looked at me and said, I am afraid to push you too hard… I want to push… but I don’t want to injure you… there is so much we can do! My heart skipped, and that tiny little ember turned into a flame. I was noticed, I still have talent, and I am capable of being something I thought I couldn’t. Eyes twinkling, he clasped his hands together and simply said, ” This is going to be fun!”.
I agree completely!
May 24th 2012
Update on my swimming journey… (Nov 2018)
It’s now November 2018. I have come a VERY long way in my thoughts and beliefs about what my body can and can’t handle. I have come even farther with what I can do physically! This little ember is now blazing fire. One that continues to wake me, once again, at o dark 30. My love of the water and the way I feel when I am in it continues to fuel my passion.
I realize now, it was the stories in my head that kept me from pushing hard in the pool. I have changed those stores and am now seeing what this 44-year-old body can accomplish. We have seen Olympians get back in the water and push themselves to the limits. The sport grows faster and faster every year.
In September of this year, I decided it was time. Time to get back in the water for real, to compete, not just to swim, but to PUSH, as I have in cross fit, in learning, and in starting this new business. I know I have emotional resilience for days. I know my body can handle a cross-fit workout…. and yet it lingered in my head that my body, my pelvis, and my SI joint couldn’t handle swimming? FULL STOP.
Wait. what?
When I sat quietly with myself. I realized I was AFRAID to push hard and long. I had gone back and gotten in shape on several occasions and loved it, but it lacked the PASSION I have for the sport. My favorite question to ask myself is “why is that?” When I answered myself, I was dumbfounded.
5 years, no pain, and I am still afraid of a flip-turn! I can deadlift 145 lbs without blinking never having tried it before, I can clean 110 lbs over and over. I can RUN, I can do all kinds of lunges and squats in all the positions, and all the ways….. ok not all, but a lot!
It’s time to test that belief. That’s how one figures out where they start to make goals.
I know NOW that my body is amazingly resilient! It recovers, it bounces back. I can gain weight, lose weight, and my body changes, and then changes again. I can get in shape, and be strong and firm, or I can eat all the chocolate and carbs and be mushy and soft and not feel as great and then change! I’ve had 2 babies for goodness sake! Our bodies CHANGE. So can our pain.
It took me a long time to stop my boom/ bust cycles of pushing and pushing and pushing through pain. I am a bit sad at how long that took me to figure out. What do I mean? Oh, all that elite athlete, mom mentality. I HAVE to do it. I WILL do it. My pain and body don’t matter I have to ________. I never understood that those beliefs and behaviors kept me in pain. It’s not the thought that hurts, it’s the choices I made BECAUSE of what I thought.
I didn’t understand there was another way to think about my life and my pain that could change my behaviors, which would change my pain! I didn’t “think” away my pain. I changed my beliefs, which changed my behaviors and gave me MORE room, more ideas, and more things to try.
I believed something bad would happen if I went back to swimming because it is what I had been told over and over. Yet when I stopped and looked at it, I was putting more stress through my pelvis with lifting and other activities I was doing BECAUSE I was concerned about swimming!
So I challenged what I believed, and took it for a bunch of tests! I didn’t fall apart when I went back to the pool in 2011, or 2012, or 2014…. so why would I stay away?
That is how I healed. That is how I enlarged my world over and over and over again since 2011. I questioned, I learned, I challenged my mind, beliefs, and body. I could have thought this science stuff all I wanted. Until I used it. Tried it, and tested it. it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference. I made a zillion mistakes on the way to where I am and I will continue to make mistakes. Because I refuse to stop learning. I refuse to stop challenging. I refuse to stop testing and pushing and growing.
THAT is how I took that little pile of embers and blew and blew and blew on it until its most recent version of a blazing fire!
What is that you ask?
I have my eyes set on Masters Nationals in Mesa AZ this Spring.
I thought it was a crazy big goal when I set it. Thought it would take all year to reach it…
Guess what.
I set my goals too low!
I swam in my first meet back in 26 years in October.
I qualified for Masters Nationals in the 50 Backstroke and was so very close in the 50 free.
SAY WHAT?!
I have time, lots of time to figure out what my body will do in the water, at 44.
I am no longer afraid of the walls.
I am free.
I want you to be free too.
