Dipping My Toe Back Into The Pool

For the first time since March 16, 2020 I went swimming in a pool this evening. The last time I swam in the pool I was still living in New York City and the pandemic and its consequences were only beginning to take effect. I did not swim again in New York and never went swimming in Atlanta though I fully intended to utilize the outdoor pool in Piedmont Park until my situation there abruptly changed and opportunity brought me back to the Boston area.

Since returning here a little over a year ago I've gone swimming at Walden Pond on a couple of occasions and did some swimming on the Fourth of July at Crystal Lake in Newton. But the latter trip really convinced me that I am not in the shape I want to be in and that I need to be back in the water on a regular basis. Mind you, it wasn't so long ago that I could swim the width of Walden Pond without too much trouble. I'm nowhere near ready to do that right now. 

I meant to return to swimming much earlier but the pool in my neighborhood had some rather extensive COVID restrictions and wasn't yet comfortable being in those conditions as cases were enormously high during the Omicron wave. The pool in my area also had some staffing issues with lifeguards. The lifeguard I dealt with this evening is a young lady who just graduated from high school. She told me that people have only started going back to the pool in earnest over the past couple of weeks. I didn't catch her name but she was very friendly and helpful in answering questions and providing an overview of the facilities including the unique shape of the pool which is deep in the middle of the lane but shallow at either end.

My goal this evening modest. It was my intention to swim five laps. I ended up swimming ten laps and am feeling every bit of it and will likely feel every bit more when I awake tomorrow morning. But I've dipped my toe and considerably more and am ready to go back on Wednesday. I'll give my body some time to recuperate on Tuesday. It will take awhile to regain muscle memory and with it stamina. But with persistence it shall come.

I'm no Michael Phelps but I take enormous pride in being able to swim. I could never learn as a child and was never able to swim until my freshman year at Carleton University. Whereas most people put on the "freshman fifteen", I ended up losing 40 pounds. Mind you this was more than 30 years ago. I don't expect to lose that much weight but even 5 to 10 pounds would be more than satisfying. It's not a question of a radical overhaul but rather some fine tuning. If nothing else it will get me out of the apartment for part of the evening two or three times a week possibly more. 

While COVID is a fact of life that will never go away, my trip to the pool this evening represents yet another return to normality for better or for worse. In this case, it is a normality for which I'll be the better.