Let's Try Swimming

In attempts to boost my cardio without upping my distance (I’ll be honest with you, I still haven’t ran more than .75 miles consecutively, I’ve been breaking it up into ¼ mile stretches with long walking breaks in between), for fear of the accursed Plantar Fasciitis coming back, I’ve been trying to cross-train. Since I was sidelined last August with PF I’ve been apprehensive to do any considerable distance until it’s all but dissipated, which has left me rather limited. I’ve been spending time on elliptical machine, the stationary bike, and my old friend the Stairmaster in addition to the treadmill. Until I can overcome my unfounded fear of cycling classes (no really, I don’t know why they scare me, it makes no sense) I am stuck in a very limited routine, and will have to hold off on my goal of a triathlon. So this week I decided to use that warm indoor pool that is almost always empty at my gym. I thought to myself, “I used to love swimming as a kid, and I was really really good at it,” and I was. I would spend hours in the pool, and not just diving and playing, but doing laps. As a kid in Boston, my uncle would swim with me out to the buoys and back, then when we moved to KY I would swim across the nearby lake (until my Ma heard about another kid who had an unfortunate incident with a box turtle [I still maintain that the story was a fabricated attempt to keep me from getting filthy with lake water]). So there I was, ready to swim. I had allotted myself half and hour to do laps (I figured I’d start out small) before having to shower and get to work. Eleven minutes (and 3.5 laps) later, I was gasping for air, practically drowning from all the water I’d ingested, and about 2 BPM away from a coronary. Apparently during my swim-less adolescence I had forgotten how to swim (thanks Ma). After conferring with some of my friends they assured me that it’s okay. They told me that it’s normal to have to relearn how to swim, that my body just isn’t built the way it was back then, and that since I’m heavier (and not the buoyant weight of too much extra fat) my lower half is dragging more than it did years ago. I think that they are full of it. Olympic swimmers have nearly zero buoyant weight and proper form doesn’t change with size. Then after talking with some more “frank” people they told me that it is my fault (what I had thought all along). Turns out that I was turning my head the wrong way when free styling (they think it was a result of me somehow combining different forms together in attempts to remember how to swim). Since then I’ve tried to correct myself and made it to eleven laps. Turns out swimming is just plain exhaustive, it leaves me (almost) as much out breath as MMA, but with fewer opportunities to breath. I’m still a long way off from triathlon distances (which is moot because of the cycling), but at least now I have another means of working out. Slowly but surely (and maybe even surly) this Heavyweight will be a runner.