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You Know you're a slow swimmer when...
NoelFigart
Lebanon, NHSenior Member
Your husband gives you some new turtle themed potholders the night before a big swim.
NoelFigart
Lebanon, NHSenior Member
Comments
AW! Maybe he'll get you the barracudas next time!!
It's always a bad hair day when you work at a pool.
Maybe it's the first in a series where he gives you gifts featuring every creature you're faster than. :-)
So - how was the swim?
(Turtles have much to recommend them for really long swims ...)
http://swimasslowaschristmas.blogspot.com/2016/07/fear.html
Kinda like that....
Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I'll drive all the way to the beach only to sit in my car and stare at the water. Our minds mess with us like that. Good job on getting in and getting it done, regardless of distance.
And as I always say, us slower swimmers are simply getting our money's worth out of the course!
Stretching your limits and being out of your comfort zone sort of implies that you're going to be uncomfortable. Being aware of the discomfort and doing it anyway is a terrific accomplishment. :-) Good for you, I say!
Just read your blog, what an excellent piece! You got in and got it done, that was amazing. Many days my courage is smaller than my challenges, I admire people who can just press on!
Dear Noel, I loved your blog and I don't think it's dorky at all to have an inspiring phrase going through your head to hold on to, regardless if it's two miles oder twenty. I even think it is a helpful mental technique. I always seem to find the perfect piece right before a special long swim (or the piece finds me? :-) ). By the way, for my last swim (first 10-hour-swim) it was the freedom speech from the movie Braveheart, especially the part where he states: "(...) And, dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here...", and it helped me a lot. :-)
I'm a slow swimmer myself. If there's a race, my first question isn't what do I need to do to win but what do I need to make the cut-off. Love your blog! Have had those "OMG, what did I sign up for? I want out!" moments.
Last year ... just a mile ocean swim.... ocean looked chopper than I was used to. I asked a volunteer "swim angel" to stay with me (acknowledge the views I've heard that there should be a better term for these folks, but as that's the term used by the swim organizers, I'm going w it for now). He saw my discomfort and said, "you know, you don't have to swim if you don't want to." But as I already paid for it, I at least wanted to get my money's worth.
So I told him I'd give it a try. I figured I'd take it bit by bit.
Thoughout the swim, there were many points when I wanted to bail. I had trouble sighting even w bilateral breathing. I was being smacked left and right. But I kept thinking it's only a mile! It's not a marathon. I'd already swum 7 miles in a river a few weeks earlier. Finally came the last turn around a buoy and to the finish. People in the 5k swim were beating me. But by then, I didnt care. I just wanted solid ground under my feet.
As it turned out, I was first in my age group. ... only because no one else was in it!
Whatever! I was grateful for the award which I see as a memento of my survival.
Each swim is different. There are swims where I feel excited and ready to roll and others where I feel as if I'm hanging by a thread. But swimming continues to be an amazing sport and I'm grateful for the challenges and the bodies of water I get to experience!
We in the back. .. remember Finding Nemo.... just keep swimming. ...
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
When you realize you are actually going backwards in your local tidal current!
What is a slow swimmer btw? So I'm a 6min400mswimmer in the pool or 3.5-3.8km/h in sea (in togs) and when the kids arrive and kick the shit out of me a i feel like and old slow man...
Slower than you, @andiss. Much, much slower than you...
Slower than me too! 6 min for 400? A pipe dream for me!
@andiss you're a fast swimmer. Stop kidding yourself.
For comparison, my swim yesterday averaged like 2.3kph. I am slow. You are fast.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
Maybe its beacuse the local talent is pretty savage, if im not mistaken a local girl swam the irish champs
did 17km in just over 4hours ......which is unreal.
As an old guy, my swimming is like a singing dog. It's not that the dog sings well that's remarkable, it's that he sings at all.