Swimming Spouse?

No significant other here that's into swimming. But, my family is a 'swimming' family. I swam, my daughter swam, and now my granddaughter is swimming. I can see my son-in-laws eyes glaze over at the dinner table when my daughter and I start talking swimming. He just sits there politely and occasionally interjects something, but for the most part I don't think he is really that interested. I hope he doesn't, althought he probably does, feel left out. We should probably try to 'educate' him about swimming and get him into it. Then on the other hand, he's a big boy and if he wants to join in, maybe he should take the initiative and learn something about swimming on his own.

My wife swims competitively and contrary to the trend noted above is younger! (I'm on the 50-54 and she's in the 45-49 and we age up the same time for meters) In some ways it's easier..especially when we travel to nationals together and other ways its harder..having to trade-off between watching the kids or training/competing. You'll find quite a few swimming couples out there. AND, like a lot of other masters, our kids also swim (HS and USA).

She Who Must Be Obeyed was a high school swimmer but now competes in equestrian events. She did help teach me to swim when I was 39. She is very supportive, if only to keep me out of trouble. She also likes the perks of going to the shore for open water races during the summer. By definition, if your spouse is into horses, you are supportive, if only in the financial sense, so it works out nicely for us both. As much as I like swimming, I'd chuck it in a heartbeat if I could racewalk again....sigh... -LBJ

My wife doesn't swim, but she supports my efforts to get to the pool. She knows it helps me blow off steam. And the fact that I have lost about 30 pounds in the 10 months since I started makes her understand how good it is for me. I know she will always support me too. A previous hobby was performing schuplattler (Bavarian folk dance) at events all over the Northeast. She never did complain about that either. Maybe she just likes getting me out of the house!

Heck no, my husband's not ALLOWED to swim! I need him to be available to time at the meet my team hosts! ;) Actually, he is very good about my swimming. He gets along very well with all my swimming buddies, and doesn't mind me traipsing all over the place with them to meets. He also works the aforementioned meet every year, comes with me to Lakeside (just because it's like going to the country club, and he can float around on a raft while I compete), and he even comes and sits through UK meets that I'm officiating after work! Pretty good guy.

We seem to have a number of married couples in my swim team. The strange thing is that the women are always older.

While I love my husband with all my heart and soul, he has no idea where I'm coming from about swimming, or really athletics in general. While I'm out everyweekend doing killer hikes, he's at home working on his car. (He did go out with me a couple of weeks ago for a 5'er, and it wiped him out! it was so cute!) When I went out to run 15 miles, he stayed home and watched football. Same thing with swimming--I dragged him to a meet once, and he nearly cried from boredom. When I was totally psyched about doing an intense wieght training workout, and Paul O'Neil was the only other person in the weight room (and I was catching his intense vibe), he thought that was pretty cool--but it didn't jazz him the same way it did me. I could ride that high for a couple of weeks! So, what I've come to realize is that it's my thing, not his, and that's totally ok. So what if my biceps are harder than his, or if I could leg press more than him. It doesn't matter. He doesn't get how awesome it is to swim sets like a fish, and that's ok too. Because of that, this forum is so important to me. It allows me to share my zest with others who have the same, or even more zest than me. It's fullfilling to be able to talk and relate to all of you. If I didn't have this forum, it would be a bummer, man, to say the least. :D

My wife prefers walking for her aerobic exercise. Later, when our kids are older, I think I can talk her into joining me in the pool from time to time. But I must admit I'm not a swimming fanatic either -- just an exrunner who has limited exercise options due to injuries. In my case, the spirit of this discussion (i.e., of wives and husbands) is more accurately addressed, however, if I talk about golf. I have the golf disease. If I don't feed the golf beast at least once a week, I'll get blinding headaches and hear voices in my head. My wife most assuredly does not play golf. Golf is her way of getting me out of her face for a day. A healthy thing, I believe.

My husband swims, makes it easier to get up for those early morning workouts because we are both swimming. We do our own workouts, I get them from this website and Michael Collins book. We swim about the same speed, the most recent open water one milers we finished together, coincidently. During the longer swims we just stay together. He doesn't like pool racing though, so I am on my own for those meets. Seems like our team, Gold Coast Masters, has several married couples who both swim. We also run and bike together.

I met my wife on my current masters team. I compete often. She has never competed in a pool event but has done a few open water swims. There are numerous such married couples who met one another on our team. Also, my parents are both USMS swimmers and both compete at Nationals. My sister and her husband are former USMS members who have been to Nationals. They still swim but are not USMS members because they are the only two masters swimmers on the island they live on! "Scolopax" - do you swim anywhere near the Bridgeport/Clarksburg area of WV? I have been doing a lot of business travel there since June and normally swim at the Clarksburg YMCA (during rec swim with no lane ropes and with kids all over!). I was wondering if there is an organized club nearby. Jeff Roddin