What introduced you to swimming?

I hated and was scared to death of swimming lessons as a little kid, I think I took intermediate swimming 3 times and never passed it, the two-arm backstroke with frog kick always eluded me. The first couple summers of lessons when I was 6 or so they had to politely ask my mom to leave during the lesson because I was in hysterics about having to get in the pool. I've wondered what some of my old swimming teachers would think if they saw what became of my swimming. Later, my mom wanted me to do some sport outdoors for my health and I was always too spacey and my hayfever was too bad for something like baseball or soccer so despite my lackluster experiences with swimming lessons she had me try out for the local USS team at age 9. To make the team you had to swim a single 25, I did about 15 before clinging to the wall exhausted. For whatever reason the coach decided to let me on anyway and by the end of the week I could do a 50. Within a month I'd learned back, ***, and fly which I had never done previously. Fast-forward 6 years when I started to grow a bit and for who knows what reason something clicked and I went from a 1:17 breaststroker to a 1:09 in the course of a week. From then I was hooked. I burnt out a bit after a year of college swimming and its 25 hours-a-week commitment and quit for 10 years before rediscovering my love for swimming with masters. I've been swimming masters now for just about 4 years and don't plan to stop. In most of my events I'm actually doing lifetime bests now.

My parents put me in swim lessons when I was about 5 or 6; I worked my way very quickly through the beginner, intermediate, and advanced lessons. At that point, the last "lesson" was in survival swimming-- I was by far the youngest in the class. I still crack up when I see pictures that my grandma took of us when we had our "final exam." We had to make a life preserver out of our jeans. (I faintly remember that everyone in the class was tall enough to stand in the water, while I had to tread water the entire time-- which seemed like an eternity but I did it!) After the survival class, the only option was swim team. The coach for the swim team affiliated with the pool where I took lessons had invited me to join, but at the time I was intimidated because the members of the team were so much older than me so I declined. I always regretted it though, and about a year or two later I told my mom I wanted to join. I attended open tryouts and made it. Practiced and competed on the swim team through 6th grade (age 12), after which I quit to do gymnastics, and now here I am in Masters! (Attorney by day.)

For me both times(as a kid and adult) it was injuries that kept me from doing anything else, but swimming worked as my physical therapy. Fell in love with it as a kid, but could not compete. The second time around it just stuck and I have been swimming for close to 3 years. Now, if I ever get enough confidence in my technique and endurance I may sign up to race.

1. Falling into a creek at age five. 2. Getting into a car accident at age 39.

My parents threw me into the ocean at age 4 or 5 and I loved it! Been swimming ever since (more than 60 years now). The competition is great and keeps me pretty motivated but I would just do mindless swimming if there were no competitions.

My dad threw me into the pool at a young age and I didn't want to get out. This has been the one sport that I have been good at doing and still have a passion for. I love being around water and people in water. I thought I was going to be a coach but it didn't work out that way.

I learned to swim as a kid (probably at 4 or 5), but it was something you did in the summer when it was warm. I grew up in a very rural area, our only pool was open Jun-Jul-Aug, was about 25 feet across at the longest (maybe 10 feet the other way), and the hub of much social life in summer. There were no swim teams, or any water-related sports, unless you were driven to a city about 20 miles away (the JCC had some swim teams). I did swimming for cub/boy scouts, but otherwise it was just a summer activity. At my first 'real' job, a co-worker challenged me to do a triathlon (swim was an 825 yrd), he ended up copping out, but I did it, and at the same time discovered masters swimmers. A few years after that, I had a job in a city where I knew no one outside of work, and decided to join the masters team for a way to have something other than work to do. Ever since I first joined a masters team back in 1998, I've been doing it. Every now and than I'll try a swim on my own, but after being used to being told what to do, and having others do it with you, it is tough working out on your own. I travel a bit, both for work and vacation, and find it fun to find swim groups on the road.

I started at age 11 wearing nose plugs and could barely swim 1 lap of the pool. My best friend had just joined the swim team so I had to follow suit. I was horrible but stuck with it, she dropped out after 2 years. That's when I started getting better. Swam thru my sophmore year of college then quit in favor of getting a parttime job at the school computer center. I figured that would look better on my resume than swimmer. At the age of 42 I had a back injury and as part of my rehab my chiropractor told me I needed to start excersizing. Swimming was the only thing I could do that would not agrevate my back injury, so I started back. It took me 2 years before I could actually bend over far enough to do a grab start off the block. Now, 5 years laters and I still have the back issues but swimming in the mornings has helped me to be able to have pain free days. I am an interface programmer for a hospital in Savannah so I sit all day. In 5 years I have managed to lose alot of weight (about 50 lbs) in addition to feeling so much better than when I started.

I came to swimming after a long running career was ended by a knee injury suffered in a fall. After the surgery, I continued to run but could not return the my earlier levels of intensity. I was also having some arthritic changes and wanted to have my own knee join in 10 years. My son as a age group and high school swimmer inspired me to give it a try. I started about 5 years ago with adult swim and stroke lessons. I progressed to our local masters group about a year later. I now swim six days per week and am able to train as hard as I ever did running. I do some OW races in the summer and am in demand from my running and cycling friends to do the swim leg on relays in local triathlons. I also do a 4-7 meets throughout the year. The challenge in picking up the sport as an adult (I started at 48) is that it is easy to pick up the technique. Many of us were runners because we weren't coordinated enough for other sports and we could suffer. The good news is that I have been getting faster since starting. I now have as much fun as I ever did running. The swimming community is more like the running community that I knew when I started in the 1970s, small and everyone knows one another.

About 2 years ago I was real heavy into mountain biking and my friend was doing lap swimming. Well in order for us to hang out, since he couldn't afford a bike and we like to physical activity, he asked me to come swim with him. It had not swam in ears other then swimming lessons as a kid. I still remember that first day. I was only able to swim a 25. A 50 was out of the question. I went swimming with him once a week for the rest of the summer and he brought up the idea that we should swim Alcatraz, we live in the bay area, and I agreed. They had swimming classes at my college so I took those to get technique down. I had a good coach who pushed me cause he saw that I wanted to be pushed. That was when I truly began to love swimming, when I was given hard workouts and survived. It made me feel strong. My friend backed out of Alcatraz and I did it alone. He doesn't swim anymore and I have been swimming with a masters team in Fresno doing doubles and love every second of it. I had my first meet in November, racing in 5 races and setting personal bests in all. I love swimming and can't imagine my life without it. I try to recruit everyone to the sport thinking they would have the same passion as me. I just get too excited. Any time I feel depressed or tired I think about swimming and what I need to do to get better and I can feel that little bit of adrenaline start coarsing through my veins and I fell better.