SLOW BUT STEADY

My little Pekingese/Shih Tzu rescue, Lola, seems to enjoy being out there, too. She sits in the shade by the pool, sniffs the air, and observes the birds, squirrels, and butterflies going through their morning routines. She occasionally watches me swim.

Before beginning the workout, I do some of the back stretches that I learned at physical therapy. Then I slowly doggy-paddle around the sides of the pool and scoop out small frogs and toads that have hopped in during the night and become trapped. Most are still alive. After resisting my attempts to save them, they finally allow me to catch them and put them on the pool deck where they hop to the safety of the garden. I flip the occasional dead one into the garden, too, where it can become plant fertilizer. Then I go to the end of the pool, set the workout app on my watch and start swimming.

For the first few days, I stuck to my 30-minute goal. Although I checked my distance after each swim, I wasn’t keeping a record then. I knew I was swimming a few hundred yards, getting my 30 minutes in, and burning many more calories than I did when I walked for exercise. At some point, I realized that I was swimming close to a half of a mile, so I decided to push past the 30-minute goal and began to swim at least 880 yards a day. That takes between 32 and 35 minutes, about 68 laps. I started recording my progress on June 16, when I first swam 1300 yards in forty-five minutes. Then I was hooked. If I could swim only 460 yards more, I’d hit a mile!

I revised my goal to be able to swim one mile before my 79th birthday in August. I alternated swimming a half a mile a day with days that I pushed for more distance. Some days I decided to swim just 30 minutes, but go for speed…a relative term at best. Then, on July 12, I had a serendipitous swim!

It was a day I had planned to swim 45 minutes. The air was fresh, the water felt great, and I was making good time. I decided to push a little more and see where the water took me. I hadn’t planned it, but thought “why not?” One hour and two minutes in, I was at 126 laps, 1638 yards, with only 122 yards to reach my goal of a mile. This would be the day, I thought…until my body said “no!” I got a terrible cramp in my left calf. I tried to swim a bit more, but my body refused to cooperate. I’m not a fan of the “no pain, no gain” philosophy, so I ended my swim there.

I still had one more month before my birthday. I would continue to train as I had been doing and try again. I knew I didn’t want to wait until the day before my birthday for my second attempt. What if my body refused again? I decided August 2 would be the next time to try for a mile.

Although I hadn’t slept well, I was out in the yard earlier than usual that morning. The sun was just waking up. I stretched, pulled three live frogs from the pool (I took this to be a good omen, no dead amphibians!), and began my swim.

I tried not to look at the clock on the wall; I just wanted to get in the zone. For a while, it felt like time was creeping by. I knew it would take me over an hour to complete the mile, and I didn’t want to think about that. When I passed the 35-minute mark, I did not feel good about my progress. Everything felt so slow.

When 55 minutes had elapsed, I felt sure I could make it if I didn’t get a cramp. And just as that thought entered my mind, I could feel a twinge in my left calf. I eased up on the flutter kick, did a couple of laps of breaststroke, and the foreshadow of a cramp went away. I continued to swim.

At 1 hour, 10 minutes, and 29 seconds I hit 1,781 yards! With several days to spare until my birthday and 21 yards of lagniappe swim, I had reached my goal. Aesop was right, slow but steady wins!

And as for my back, it feels better now than it has in years!