Hello All:
This past week found me back in the pool for a coached workout for the first time in 30+ years. I swam high school & college but my college career ended strangely largely due to the fact I had undiagnosed asthma. I didn't find out I had it until 15 years after I hung up my suit.
So I stayed away from swimming for some reasons that don't make a lot of sense anymore. A month or so ago I went to a local pool & swam a bit. I found out I really missed it. A lot.
So just over a week ago I found our local USMS club, joined, and this week just past swam my first four workouts in decades.
I really love it!:banana:
I would enjoy hearing from others who took a long or longer break from swimming & returned. What's was it like to get back in the pool after so long? How is it for you now?
Thanks!
--Zwemmer (simply Dutch for "swimmer"), also known as Benjamin.
Hi Zwemmer!
Due to bullying and untreated MH issues I took a "break" from swimming and most other athletic activities starting when I was an early teen. I didn't really even try being more active again til I started biking to school in college, and picked up hockey when I was twenty. In 2010 I had to leave school due to more MH exacerbation (panic disorder) and got sidelined from *everything*. After much hard work to get to even leave my porch, I found job(s), picked up hockey again, started going to the gym (I work at one - woo free pool access) and in the past couple of years have decided what the hell, I'm going to try - or re-try - all those fun things I wanted to do before but couldn't as a kid. Back to hockey (a goalie now), softball, the gym, horseback riding, and of course, the pool. The story is that my mom went swimming the day I was born, and then a big thunderstorm swept in that night, so I guess the water is just my destiny. I had to work my way up to doing 500yds in one stretch but for the last few years I've been sort of aimless and just working on distance without any plan for increasing speed and power. I think right now if I worked very, very hard in a few weeks I could shave my 50m free to 0:45. Maybe. We'll go for under 50 seconds. At one time, I was pretty fast, for whatever that's worth at 12. Personally I'm a little scared to hop in with a masters' team - most of the ones near me are based at colleges, full of svelte and speedy folks. D: I wish there was a masters' practice at one of the gym pools, and I think there was, but not anymore?
Glad you came back to the sport, and good luck on your swimming journey
Hi Zwemmer!
Due to bullying and untreated MH issues I took a "break" from swimming and most other athletic activities starting when I was an early teen. I didn't really even try being more active again til I started biking to school in college, and picked up hockey when I was twenty. In 2010 I had to leave school due to more MH exacerbation (panic disorder) and got sidelined from *everything*. After much hard work to get to even leave my porch, I found job(s), picked up hockey again, started going to the gym (I work at one - woo free pool access) and in the past couple of years have decided what the hell, I'm going to try - or re-try - all those fun things I wanted to do before but couldn't as a kid. Back to hockey (a goalie now), softball, the gym, horseback riding, and of course, the pool. The story is that my mom went swimming the day I was born, and then a big thunderstorm swept in that night, so I guess the water is just my destiny. I had to work my way up to doing 500yds in one stretch but for the last few years I've been sort of aimless and just working on distance without any plan for increasing speed and power. I think right now if I worked very, very hard in a few weeks I could shave my 50m free to 0:45. Maybe. We'll go for under 50 seconds. At one time, I was pretty fast, for whatever that's worth at 12. Personally I'm a little scared to hop in with a masters' team - most of the ones near me are based at colleges, full of svelte and speedy folks. D: I wish there was a masters' practice at one of the gym pools, and I think there was, but not anymore?
Glad you came back to the sport, and good luck on your swimming journey
