Paddle for Your Life

I attended QUAC swimming practice for the first time back in March 2006, and have been attending sporadically on Sundays for the past two years. All this time I’ve stayed in the beginner lane, partly because even after two years of sporadic Sundays I still don’t have any endurance (one lap pretty much does me in) and partly because I like being the head of the class.

That has now come to an end, I’m sorry to say. Today Lane One (the beginner lane) was doing flutter-kick drills. I hate kick drills, but I’m pretty fast. (Not exactly the point of a kick drill, but I take what I can get.) Apparently the lane coach got tired of me mowing down everyone in the lane without even trying, and he bumped to the next lane to work on my breast kick.

You probably don’t know this, but the breaststroke is my swimming nemesis. It is awkward, uncomfortable, slow and aggravating. Doing breaststroke kick drills—especially with a kickboard— is the outside of enough. So I am very proud to say that I persevered. I gave it my all. I frog-kicked and splashed and swallowed water and choked up and down the length of the pool for an hour. I BUILT CHARACTER.

Of course, in real life, the reward for hard work is aching muscles, a headache, and sinuses full of chlorine. Maybe that’s what character is made of: chlorinated snot.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 3:52 pm and is filed under exercise/fitness, me, swimming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Paddle for Your Life”

Sean Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 9:12 pm
LOL. I haven’t been to a QUAC practice since I started grad school. Now that I’m done with my course work, I don’t have an excuse anymore. I am not looking forward to getting back in the water after a two year hiatus. Keep it up. As you get better at it you will find you hate breast stroke less. Backstroke is my least favorite stroke. I’ve gone from loathing it to merely disliking it over the years. Who knows, you might come to love it. After years of struggling w/ butterfly, one day it clicked and it’s one of best strokes…or was.
Sean Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 9:17 pm
LOL. I haven’t been to a QUAC practice since I started grad school. Now that my course work is done I don’t have an excuse anymore. I am not looking forward to getting back in the water after a two year hiatus. Backstroke is my nemesis, but I find I hate it less the better I get. These days it is merely distasteful and not vile and loathsome. You never know, you might actually learn to love breast stroke. :)
Sean ( PizzoC) Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Oh, I hate backstroke as well, but mostly because of the water that gets in my nose and sinuses. I’ve never tried the butterfly–I look forward to being terrible at it when the time comes. :D As for breaststroke, my main problem is that I was taught it wrong years ago when I was first learning to swim, and I’m only just now finding out how it’s really SUPPOSED to be done. Maybe if I had learned it right from the beginning I wouldn’t find it quite so awkward and uncomfortable.

I actually really like QUAC, if for nothing else than the opportunity to be surrounded by toned men in Speedos. It would be much more comfortable if I could enjoy the experience while fully clothed, but, alas. Also, I’ve learned that I am hopeless at motivating my own self to do laps, so it serves a definite purpose there.