Swimming

Tonight I'm just getting in the water. Give me a minute to explain...

It has been quite some time since I have been swimming. It's my favorite form of exercise and I'm pretty bummed there is not a public (indoor) pool in this town. I have had some wonderful periods in my adult life when I swam somewhat regularly.

Swimming was one of the only "PE" classes I had in college. I remember those early mornings my sophomore year when my roommate Greg Tucker and I would get up oh so early to hoof it over to the pool to put in our time. I can remember the first time I could swim the entire length of that pool underwater without coming up for a breath! That was a pretty cool day.

Then there was the "season" in my life when I worked at DaySpring and decided I was going to loose weight for James and Dawn Marie Martin-Prather's wedding. I started mid-April going to the pool at JBU every day religiously to put in my 20 minutes. Every day for 3 months. I dropped about 45 pounds before their big day in August! It was a wonderful time.

And most recently were the days, and often nights, in Carpenteria when I would split my time between the city pool in Carp and the Goleta Health and Racquetball Club. Those were the Glory Days of my swimming experience. Both pools were surrounded by palm trees and there was almost always an ocean breeze to cool me off. But it isn't that easy for me. On some days it doesn't matter how beautiful the surroundings, I just simply do not want to swim!

And although I say it's my favorite form of exercise, I would regularly drag myself to the pool arguing, "All you have to do today is just stand in the water for 20 minutes if you don't want to swim." And many times I was determined that I would not swim. But in this exercise in discipline, to fulfill my commitment to "swim" every day, I was really playing a mind game.

It was a mind game because you can't just stand in water. Always within the first 5 minutes I would be turning out laps. You see, if you get in the water, something natural kicks in and you just have to swim. Which brings me to tonight.

I didn't want to blog this evening. Ever been there? But like my swimming exercise, my "getting in the water" tonight has once again lead to a healthy workout... this time it was a Blog workout!