Getting back in the swim

Like most Aussie kids of my generation, I was taught to swim when I was in the first couple of years of school.  I never thought of myself as being particularly gifted.  My performance at subsequent swimming carnivals during my school years, was at best average and at worst pretty pathetic. My greatest swimming achievement is not drowning as a child despite having a backyard pool and a nasty big brother, swimming in huge surf, dirty dams and local rivers.

Not too long after leaving the school yard, medical practitioners started telling me that swimming was a good activity for me as it was perfect for my dodgy back (I blame genetics and horse riding).  To which I uniformly replied "I don't like swimming".  Simple.  Flash forward 20 or so years, after about a 12km walk with my girlfriends around the local environs, I became crippled by Plantar Fasciitis.  Long story short (if its not long enough already) I got treated, was given orthotics for my trainers and told to swim instead of walk.

So, I found that my Gym employed a fit young man who used to swim for South Africa at the highest levels and trained at the Australian Institute of Sport.  I signed up for three swimming lessons focused on freestyle and away I went!  And guess what?  I LOVE swimming now.  I find just being in the water relaxing.  I find doing laps meditative.  I love the effect that it has on my physique - when I do enough of it.  I still hate all the rigmarole with getting changed and showering and washing and drying my hair after.  But all in all I am a convert.

Having said that, it has been a while since I swam laps due to a minor operation on my shoulder at the end of last year combined with School Holidays and the pesky requirement to supervise my children while at a pool.  BUT today I went to the same swim centre that I have been going to for years with my kids, bought a pass that entitles me to 10 sessions in the pool and jumped in and swam 750m quite happily and I feel FANTASTIC about it.

What is the secret to my success you may ask (besides the aforementioned young South African man).  It is (training aids - which he and my chiropractor recommended).

And following on from yesterday's post, I did get around to ringing my insurer about the large Eucalyptus tree that is lying prone across my fence and yard and was told, among many other interesting tidbits, that if I claim for my destroyed 6 year old $200 trampoline that my premium will go up $110 per year ... fancy that!