Just keep swimming
Categories: personal
6 weeks ago I signed up to do my Bronze Medallion qualification so that I could Patrol with the other Surf Lifesavers at my local beach. We've been involved in the surf club for a long time as my kids have both taken part in surf sports for years.
To get your Bronze you have to learn a load of different things from CPR through to being able to identify rips and other hazards at the beach. You also have to be a pretty good swimmer. As it turns out I was not as good a swimmer as I thought I was.
The first week of the course we were asked to do our frist run/swim. The run swim is 100m run followed by a 400m ish swim. I nearly drowned. I came dead last by a long time - including the slightly patronising clap from my fellow bronzies when I finally made it out of the water red faced and wheezing. I came away from the session depressed. As a guy approaching 50, I felt like I just couldn't do it. I was really upset, I was embrrarassed.
After thinking about it for a bit I pulled myself togetehr and decided rather than throw in the towel, I needed to do something about it, I wasn't going to quit and I certanly wasn't going to come last in the swim every time. So I started swimming in the mornings. 3 times a week (because thats the time the local pool allows). When I started I couldn't even do 2 continuous lengths of the 25m pool. Now after 6 weeks I am swimming 1km+ 3 times a week. The sea swim is also much better. I'm not the fastest but i'm also not dead last. I also managed to get my bronze time trial done - 400m un under 9 minutes - I came in at just over 8.
I've a few more weeks of the course left and I have to do a timed swim to complete that so I need to keep going but after that, I am going to try and stick to the pool swimming as long as I can.