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I’ve come a long way since last year, swimming-wise. It wasn’t too long ago that I counted every millisecond between breaths and dreaded the next 25m. Now I look forward to sessions in the pool and my biggest dilemma is whether to swim 400m or 500m sets!

The key indicator of my progress is the blissful experience of “time loss” (at least that’s what I call it). I’ve been there many times on a long bike ride, the kilometres slipping by as my mind drifts at a higher level of consciousness. It’s a peaceful experience where you can either have some really deep thoughts or just revel in the moment. When it’s over you have no clue whether five seconds or five hours have passed.

My only concern about “time loss” in the pool is that I lose track of how many laps I’ve done — very frustrating when doing a steady 500m set! Still, it’s fabulous to have become this relaxed in my most dreaded sport. When your fears of drowning have been replaced with fears that you’ll do an extra 100m, that’s not such a bad thing, is it?

The neighbourhood pool where I train is pretty small, only 3 lanes at the best of times. I normally go to the “early risers” adult swim, and the crowd at that hour is mixed but definitely slanted towards the older age brackets. This means that the first two lanes are really slow, leaving me only one choice.

I just wish that everyone would pick their lanes a little more sensibly. The slow crowd spot the 2-3 people moving only about an inch per second so they flock to the middle lane, forcing the medium lane group to switch into the fast lane. Now the “lanes” at this pool are only about half the width of a standard lane, so once the fast lane has 6 people in it going at wildly different speeds, it’s crowded and difficult to pass. (more...)