About a year and a half ago, I joined
. I had been not-drowning my whole life, but I had
coming up and my triathlon coach encouraged me to join a masters swim group to work on technique. My first masters swim was February 28, 2014. I remember not being able to do any of the drills, not understanding whatever those hieroglyphics on the big white board meant, and realizing how lucky I was to have never drown on account of I clearly had no idea how to swim.
That very first day, we did pull drills. Pull drills are when you swim with paddles on your hands and a pull buoy between your legs. I had never done this before. I placed the buoy between my legs, put the paddles on and started swimming. I immediately flipped over onto my back. Okay, that's probably normal, I thought. Let's try again. Nope, I still flipped over onto my back. I couldn't do it. I was like a turtle stuck upside down in its shell. I was mortified.
My swim coach that first day was
, and she is still my swim coach today. Literally, I just got home from her Monday morning swim practice. Coach Chris is a pro. She taught me how to swim. And for the record, I swam the 1.2 miles in IM 70.3 Augusta in 31 minutes.
So when, about a month ago, Coach Chris came to me and asked me to join the NAC Masters Spring Chicken Classic, I laughed in her pretty face and told her no. Swim meets are for swimmers. I'm just a triathlete who prefers not to drown during her races. But then everyone else signed up and Chris started teaching them how to dive off the starting blocks. I am nothing if not a joiner, so I signed up. But I only signed up for the 50m free because I can't flip-turn.
I had so much fun at this swim meet! My event was right in the middle, so I had plenty of time before and after to eat swim snacks and talk to my swim friends. Which, let's talk about that. I was never on a swim team, so standing around talking to people in your bathing suit is WEIRD. Here's me in every conversation that day, "I'm sorry, what were you saying? I zoned out when I re-remembered we're both standing here in our bathing suits."
I swam my event as fast I have ever swam in my life, and I still came in second to last place, ha ha. Hilariously, the only other swimmer in my age group was Ashley Whitney, who you may know from THE OLYMPICS. Ashley is a coach at NAC, so she just swam for fun, which meant I won by default because she wasn't a registered swimmer at the meet. You better believe I'm telling everyone I beat an Olympian in my first swim meet!
I swim with NAC twice a week, and I love it. I'm not only friends with Chris, my coach, but I've gotten to know so many of the people I swim with. I really look forward to my practices. If you've ever thought about joining a masters group, which I know some of you have, I can't recommend
enough. Come swim with me!
