On Becoming An Athlete at 52, swimming in my first USA Swimming meet

Here I am, about to jump into one of swimming’s most famous pools, the IUPUI Natatorium in Indianapolis.  I have been here at swim meets eight times previously, but never as a swimmer, always as a coach.  This time I am here as a coach, but I could not resist the opportunity to swim in one of the world’s fastest pools. 

During warm-ups with my age group team I plunge in feet first into a lane full of churning bodies, all of whom are much younger and faster than myself.  As I go down the lane I periodically get a mouthful of water when I turn to get a breath .  At the wall, I remind one of my swimmers, “ Keep going, don’t stop at the wall.”  I now know why it is so hard to do a flip in a lane full of others.  I can’t even see where the wall is with all those wriggling bodies in front of me. 

Even with all those traffic problems, I am loving it.  The pool is cold, the pool is deep, the pool is great.  I am swimming and I feel like, wow, this is what it is like swimming here in a pool where world records have been made, where some of the world’s fastest swimmers have raced.  I am here too.  No, not a fast swimmer, but a new developing swimmer who is loving it.

Then the most difficult part of the entire warm-up, getting out of the pool.  I cannot haul my 52 year old still overweight body out.  Who could believe that the most challenging part of this experience would be leaving it?  I finally get my knee hooked up on the edge of the gutter and then one foot.  I have to stretch my tight 5’ 4’’ body up on the deck and roll on to it totally prone.  It is not graceful.  In fact, it is awkward.  But I did it. 

Tomorrow I will race in this pool.  I will swim the 200 free and the 50 free.  The 200 is a race I have done once before and I am now swimming it faster in practice than I did in my first meet.  I really hope to swim it even faster in this pool than I have ever before.  I will then swim the 50 free, swimming’s fastest race.  The fastest I have done it is a 48 in practice, I have never raced it in a meet.  I love the idea of going all out as fast as I can.  I would consider it to be spectacular to be able to break 40 seconds.  I am not at all sure I can do that, but I sure am willing to try. 

This is me becoming an athlete, working to keep improving, to push my body and my mind to places where they have not been before.  I want this so much, I want to not just be congratulated because some one my age is doing it, but because I am good at it.  I am not really good at it,… yet.  I am a work in process.  I am becoming.  So maybe next year I will be fast.  I will be able to get out of pool with grace and strength.  I will not only be an athlete, but a good athlete.