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Swimming Won't Let You Down...

Thursday, 02 June 2016 00:10

By Emy Everhart (emy-everhart.com)

So far this season I have missed two early-season multi-sport opportunities due to this medial tibial stress syndrome nuisance. I was to be run-bike-running at Falls Duathlon on April 30th, and at the Esprit de She women’s duathlon in Lakeville on May 22nd. But you already know all of that because you’ve been reading every post and are all up-to-date on my multisport life.  I didn’t race either of these as I give my leg more time to be healthy for triathlons, but it was still kind of hard to shake that feeling that there was somewhere I was supposed to be when the race days rolled around.

Anyway, although I was super bummed to miss out on these races, it’s clearly not helpful to get sucked-in by thoughts about start and finish lines I wasn’t able to cross. Rather, I’m focusing on the excitement of the rest of the season that is approaching, a season that includes 8 swim-bike-runs that I’m currently registered for, with hopefully at least 2 more September races that are yet-to-be-determined.  Generally speaking, I prefer my biking and running to be preceded by a good swim, so allow me to get romantic about swimming for the remainder of this post....

I’ve noticed lately that the amount of swimming I am doing currently has been triggering all sorts of nostalgic memories about my ‘life as a swimmer’ when I was young and it’s granting me this strange connection to that little person I was growing up. I’m having some vivid recollections of what it was like going to practice, being in the EC YMCA pool (I even distinctly remember one time when I was mid-set, probably somewhere between 13-15 years old, just craving some chips and all I could think about was all the chips I was going to eat when I got home). Playing games outside on the Y steps with the other swimmers while we waited (Red Light, Green Light, anyone?!). Waiting for my pick-up from my mom or dad or one of my two brothers after practice (including a memory of one time when my brother got really irritated with me because he was at the way end of a long line of cars and I didn’t realize he had been there waiting – umm, because of a super-intense game of Red Light, Green Light, no doubt – and I then complained that he’d taken so long to pick me up when I got in the car – oops, sorry, Wells!). All of the bus rides to out-of-town meets, shenanigans en route to and from the meets, the stops at McDonald’s on the way home (our sponsor!), and the coaches handing out our ribbons on the bus on the way home. Not to mention the awesomeness of the swim meets themselves! For one entire day we would get to hang out in a gymnasium with other kids between the ages of 5 and 18 and lounge comfortably in sleeping bags, play cards, listen to music, goof around, and eat nachos and soft pretzels. This time would only be interrupted by our swim events (oh yeah, the reason we were there in the first place), which would be marked by the event numbers in thick black marker on our arms so we didn’t lose track of when we were supposed to show up for seeding. All of this stuff was just what we did as swimmers, it just made sense. For me, there was never any question about why, or what else could I be doing, or where was this whole swimming thing going to take me…it was just FUN.   READ MORE