The Honeymoon Is Over, Baby

The swimming honeymoon, that is.  You know what I mean.  The euphoria of finding a great new hobby (don’t you dare ask me about my knitting), or going to the mall and finding that everything you love is on sale?  That honeymoon.  Well, today I decided that I’m over my swimming honeymoon.  Do I love to swim?  Yes.  Do I look forward to it?  Yes.  Am I going to continue swimming?  Yes.  Does it hurt?  Hello!!!  Does it ever!

I am guilty of setting unrealistic goals for myself.  Yes, it’s just shocking, isn’t it?  (Those who know me are laughing right now).  Why can I not get it through my thick skull that I should not expect myself to be in the same place that I was when I stopped swimming?  Why is that?  I am not a stupid person.  I think I am quite well schooled in common sense and logic.  I’m even pretty book smart.  But this concept of starting over is just beyond me. 

It was 18 years ago (this month, in fact) that I walked away from swim practice and vowed to never look back.  I was 17 years old and it was my senior year of high school.  It was a huge deal.  I had spent the previous 6 years of my life swimming year round with no more than a 2-week break at the end of the summer.  I had dedicated many years to swimming and I simply walked away.  Walking away was the best thing for me at the time, however, I do regret not swimming for my high school team that year.

In hindsight, the plan to “never look back” was not such a great idea.  Here I am at age 35 and swimming again.  I hop in the pool and expect that I can whip out a 200m fly.  I used to do 10x200m fly and LOVE it.  Today, I swam about 20m fly.  It is just plain depressing.  Our main set today consisted of 4x 5x100, descending 1-5.  Uh-huh, right.  I don’t “descend”.  I have ONE speed and it is called SLOW.

Coach tried to remind me today that I need to hold myself to different standards right now.  (I’m quite sure that he thinks I am nuts!).  There are certain times in life that being uber-competitive does not serve you well, and this is clearly one of them.  Instead of just “doing my thing” I find myself racing bikini girl and the guys in lane 3.  For God’s sake, one of the guys holds a masters national record!  What the heck am I thinking?!

Ugh.  Yes, friends, the honeymoon is most certainly over.  The reality of just how much work I have to do has hit me.  And as depressing as it may be, there is nothing to do but keep on going and put my competitiveness aside. 

The good news is that I’m already going faster than bikini girl, so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.  I *so* did not just say that….