Swimmer's Destiny

At 6 years old I started swimming on a swim team. At first it was fun and I went to practice, learned to dive into shallow water, and made a few friends. I loved swimming and was particularly good at the breaststroke. Eventually swimming turned into work and competition. A few of us were vying for slots in the Junior Olympics and consistently hitting qualifying times each and every meet. Medals did not matter anymore because the qualifying time was all that defined those swims.  There were two - a - day workouts, swim clinics, and out of the water work.  My parents spent their life watching me swim - I swam all over the state of North Carolina. Then one day I aged up and I could not hit the qualifying marks anymore.  I was still in the ballpark, but I did not have the desire to get there doing hard work. I guess I was tired.  So I settled for the high school swim team because it sounded more fun.  I figured at least I could win there but  always got put on the 1,500 yard swim (metric mile) because I had swim experience.  I never won, I was not a distance swimmer. I was a 50 meter breast -stroker. I remember telling my coach about my accolades and he said "you may swim faster in the breaststroke than the others, but we already have a breaststroker who can win, so we need you to try to win the distance swims." This bothered me, I was being used to fill slots no one wanted. I tired of this quickly and focused on my running.  I had started running around the end of 8th grade. I was not good at running, but I liked it, and it was something I could just enjoy.

Years passed, and I continued to run.  In 2013 I dedicated my time to training for a marathon. My first marathon.  Everything was going wonderfully until I fell and ended up injured nearly 12 weeks into an 18 week program. I panicked! What was I to do? I had to keep my endurance up.  It had been 15 years since I had swam in a pool. Sure I had gone to friends houses and swam, could still do blackflips off a diving board, but I did not even own goggles. I decided I had to go back to the pool. I did not have a proper swim suit, but I had a tankini, I bought a pair of goggles, and I headed to an indoor pool. I remember hobbling in and feeling like a foreigner. I got into a lane and started my swim. I was bound and damn determined to finish 50 yards. When I got back to the wall I was winded. I swam around 1,200 yards that night, not really knowing much of what I was doing.  The next night I went back and met a friend.  It so happened my friend was a swim team coach.  He asked me about my strokes and said "were you ever by chance, a competitive swimmer?" Emotion flooded from my voice, "yes!" I exclaimed.  He said "stick at it, you'll get back!"  I ended up purchasing several new swim suits, a swim cap, and a membership to the pool.  I swam until I could bear weight on my leg and ran the marathon later that fall.  I ended up using swimming as a cross training tool for the next few years, using swimming as my main form of exercise during my twin pregnancy, but maintaining at least a 1-2x weekly swim while running daunting distance.  I learned to flip turn again, learned about drills, and even practiced starts. At some point I found an adult swim team and met my friend Ed, who keeps me accountable.  His motto is "refuse to sink," and he is the biggest supporter for swimmers that I have ever met.  Ed emails me (us) weekly, meets me at the pool when needed, and encouraged me to try my first "open water swim" 2 years ago.

The open water swim created a fierceness in me.  It took some time, but one day I decided that if I could train for and run 7 marathons, I could surely train for and swim 2.4 miles in a lake.  So here I am, training for my first open water swim race.  Part of me feels as though this was my destiny.  That all my training - starting at age 6 in a metered pool, to running my first marathon at age 32, made me ready for swimming distance at 37.  

At present I train by going to the pool 4-5 days a week, running 3 times a week, and trying to hit the open water when I can (2-3x a month).  My friend Ed is pushing me through practice on Saturday and swimming the lake with me occasionally, Kayla is powering me through the runs,  and I've even enlisted my husband to kayak with me while I swim.  I've got several friends who are up for the kayak challenge!


I've never felt so empowered, so strong, and so amazing. I'm  excited about this journey, this opportunity, and fulfilling my destiny.   "Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." ~ William Jennings Bryant

Being Flexible

Yesterday I posed to Instagram:  "All these thoughts and ideas... what I knew I’d get done tonight... but nah. None of it happened. I had planned to cook a nice vegan meal with fresh veggies... nah, ordered Japanese. Planned on helping Ava start a blog... nah, gave her colored pencils and a journal instead. Planned on bills, laundry, and rest... nah, instead we ended up with a nose bleed that almost never stopped. I was covered in my daughter’s blood and tears. It’s over now, we are clean, I’m sipping a hot cup of kava tea, the kids are playing, and it’s all over... the point of this is, as adults we have to learn to be flexible. And here I am, trying to figure out if I did something right, trying to be flexible as a freaking straw, and still full of doubt. I’m an adult who freaks out when there’s no order, when there’s chaos, and when we have to eat Japanese. Omg. True story. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty amazing... ever changing, chaotic, consuming, emotional, and amazing." 

This post made me interested in exploring flexibility and an adult's ability to freely change midstream.  Being the mother of three, you would think I was pretty flexible but I'm not. I adhere to routine.  Routine is good, in fact, for children, routine and structure is recommended... but to me, in this case, I'm the variable, I have to adapt to change to fit in to their moods, whims, and wants. Even within this structure - I have to be flexible.  



So what is routine? Routine is a series of habits.  Good routines for me include: wake-up, coffee, run, breakfast, work, swim, eat lunch, work, grab a snack, get the kids, cook dinner, shower, sleep. I have rituals tossed in (a ritual is a routine with assigned meaning): morning musings / meditation and nightly tea or wine. Paradoxically, because I have a good routine, I should never have to make a decision - but wait - I have too... because flip it all, I have three variables that are constantly changing myself.  And let's be honest here... I'm a mother. I live in their world. So I have to be the one who is uberflexible. Which means sometimes I miss that run, I miss that breakfast, I do everything during work hours, I miss cooking dinner, and I miss that shower. The ritual even loses meaning when I decide I want that second glass of wine or I forgo morning musings (what I call my meditation) to sleep 15 extra minutes. 

The point I want to make here is that many of us are trying to be perfect in an unperfect setup. Things change, we change, but we have to adapt. It's okay to be upset that something did not go as planned, it gives you the opportunity to make it different, count blessings, and still express gratitude - things work out anyway, right? Anymore, hardly anything goes as planned for me. I just have to learn to roll with the punches; that's the definition of being a mother.  And for that I'm grateful!