There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who enjoy exercising and those who do not. Unfortunately, I am in the latter category. It's strange, but I just don’t like the feeling of not being able to breathe. Or feeling like my legs are on fire. Or that my arms are going to break.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I know how important exercise is for our bodies and our minds. But if there was some magic pill that provided the benefits of exercise without having to actually, you know, exercise, I would totally hoard those babies.
But since there is no such pill (yet), I swim. Not well, I might add, but I pride myself on being able to get from one end of the pool to the other. And I’m not being modest when I say that I’m no Michael Phelps. In fact, Michael Phelps would probably have some pretty choice words for me if he saw me swimming. Let’s just say my front crawl really lives up to its name.
Although I'm not the fastest swimmer, I love how everything in the world falls away once I'm underwater. All my fears and uncertainties simply disappear, and it's just me and the water. But sometimes it can be hard to remember what I love about swimming. Especially when I first get in the pool. At that point, I'm usually thinking: Well, this isn't going to happen. The water is freezing, so I begin to come up with various reasons for why I should get out. Until some guy with 12-pack abs notices me standing like the Tin Man and calls out cheerily, “Don’t worry! It’s really warm once you get used to it!”
I’m just going to point out that this is a complete lie. Even after swimming for 30 minutes, the water is most certainly not warm. Less frigid, yes, but I wouldn’t exactly call it “warm.”
Anyway, after emotionally preparing myself for the cold water, I push my feet off the wall and begin to swim. This is about the time that I start to think: I’m going to die. I can't breathe, and with each stroke it feels like my body is shouting: "Mission abort! Mission abort!"
When I finally finish my first lap, I’ve pretty much had enough. All right, I'm done, I think to myself. But I push myself to do another lap, which is typically less painful. I still can’t breathe, but at this point, it no longer feels like I’m swimming in a melted glacier.
By lap number five, I start to get cocky. Psh, this is easy—I could do this all day. Unfortunately, my resolve is short-lived, and by lap six I’m back to thinking I’m going to die.
At some point or another, a very large man will decide to join my lane. It starts out fine, with each of us swimming on our respective sides of the lane. Slowly but surely, though, the man will inevitably take up the majority of the lane while I get real friendly with the lane divider. But what's worse is that every time he swims past me, I am overtaken by a tidal wave. And whenever I come up for air, he unintentionally kicks water in my face, and I get a refreshing mouthful of highly-chlorinated water.
Since swimming laps sometimes makes me feel like a confined whale at SeaWorld, a few months ago I decided to buy an underwater mp3 player. I was scared to use it at first since I was sure it would break (or electrocute me), but so far it's been working great. And it's made swimming much more fun. Seriously, there’s nothing like listening to “Under the Sea” when you’re literally under the sea (or pool, in my case).
I would have to say that my favorite part about swimming is getting out of the pool. I wish I was referring to that “feeling of accomplishment” junk all you exercise lovers talk about, but I mean that I’m literally happy to be done swimming. Hey, at least I'm self-aware.
