Last year I wrote about my year of swimming. Then I stopped for three weeks over the winter holidays. Now, getting back into swimming has been SLOW. I surprise myself by how easily I find excuses skip it – I get to bed too late, or I have a late dinner, or an early meeting. It doesn’t make much sense to me, this hesitation to do something that I really want to do anyway. But there it is, in the form of a big warm bed, beneath the covers, and far from the dark, cold windy bike ride that separates me from the pool.

As luck would have it, the Clissold Leisure Centre just opened right down the street. (On a side and somewhat ironic note, the Clissold Swimming Club linked to one of our posts) Not only do they have a 25m training pool, but they’re also running adult swim classes. So I signed up for the Intermediate class. £50. 4 months. 16 weeks. 16 lessons. What a bargain.

Last Monday was lesson 1. I went in feeling pretty confident that I’d be one of the better swimmers in the class. But that’s a silly way to think, especially when I turned out to be, well, a very average swimmer. We spent most of the time kicking, first with a kick board, then without, then on our backs, not using our arms at all. Very slow and tiring work. My legs are weak and puny. I was hoping to meet some fellow swimmers in the class but we were too busy swimming to really mingle. This is good, in a way, and there’s a small amount of socializing between drills. I can’t really get into the whole let’s-chat-while-we’re-naked-in-the-locker room scene. Too booshy.

Looking forward to next Monday’s class. And a swim tomorrow morning (now that my legs have recovered).

Crossposted to spacekadet.org