Wednesday, May 18, 2011

It's time to get my swim on!

So my friend Jenna is crazy motivated. She's a full-time mom, self-taught photographer, and earlier this year started a weight-loss challenge for her readers (which I started but sadly will not win). Recently she posted about how she's dealing with an injury that's preventing her from running, so she went swimming instead.

Sadly, I've never been a runner. Members of my family run, and I love the running culture, but since I grew up with broken barbie doll knees (and a lack of any sort of real motivation) prevented me from joining the club.

Aside: I'm not kidding when I say broken barbie doll knees. I have SEVERE hyperextension in both legs. Sure, it was a cool party trick growing up, but I've sprained my left knee twice, and it's never, EVER a cool thing when the doctor says "Whoa! I've never seen anything like that before!" Note to future doctors, even if you haven't seen that before, please, please lie.

But since I thought that part of the high school experience involved athletics (come to think of it, nearly all of my friends were on some team or another) I joined the swim team my sophomore year. Did I lose every race? Yep! Was I relegated to back stroke because my dives were embarrassing? I have my suspicions. But did I love it? Completely.

Here's the thing about swimming. It's a pain in the butt to get ready for. Squeezing into a swim suit, exfoliating, shaving and smoothing, running all over town trying to find a swim cap because you cut your hair at the end of last summer so it doesn't fit in a ponytail holder and you can't stand it when your hair gets caught in your goggles...all sorts of annoying.

But once I run through the necessary checklist, I could seriously go swimming three times a day; I love being in the water that much. And I'm not a social swimmer. Let's be honest, I don't want to be sued for blinding anyone. (If you think I'm exaggerating, well, my vitamin D deficiency isn't from lack of dairy intake.) No, I like to go when the pool isn't crowded and the only ones there are swimming laps.

Why do I bring this up? Well, today, I ran through the checklist, and come tomorrow morning, I will be in that water. Lately I've been motivated to be more active. I really don't know why now and not before, but regardless, it's swimming time!

4 comments:

Naomi said...

Good for you! I have a swim cap that is still in the package, but by golly, one of these days I'm going to do some laps!

MOM/SUSAN said...

You go girl! It's always the getting ready that's hard--but sounds like it's so worth it to you when you get in that water.
You make me want to be better. Honest.

Rachel said...

Yay! Go, Meggie, go! This is just one step towards triathlon 2012 (I'm already trying to recruit people to do one with me).

Mary said...

Sorry to bother you, I have a strange question. I found your blog because I am looking for the song Birthday, Birthday, coming to Earth day, pink and wrinkled and small... I googled it and it came up that you had a post with that title back in 2007. I have it stuck in my head and don't know where I have heard it. I want to use it for girls camp in two days and don't know where to find it. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Mary