Casual open-water swim challenge becomes a life-altering moment
Training for race in Barbados drives 50-something woman to the best shape of her life
How hard can it be?
As soon as you hear the question, you know there is going to be more to this story.
Sipping on a rum punch at a Barbados Tourism Board lunch in Toronto this summer, I hear myself agreeing to take part in a 1.5-kilometre openwater swim race, to take place Nov. 7.
PR professional Ann Layton, who I met for the first time on this muggy day, tells me she has decided to “up her game” when it comes to swimming and participate in the 5K swim competition, part of the Barbados Open Water Festival held every year in November. She sweetly suggested it would be nice if I joined her — maybe the 1.5K race if the 5K was too much?
We are both 50-something professional woman with busy careers and our days are not spent in the gym and counting the calories in our lunch. Well, not until now.
I have been swimming since a child, usually just puttering around in lakes but admittedly never had any formal training.
But really, this sounded quite easy. I wasn’t being asked to climb Everest or enter an Ironman competition. And so what if I am well past my prime physically and my biggest workout these days is popping the cork on a bottle of vino.
Two-and-a-half months before race day, reality sets in and I find out exactly what I’m in for. While on vacation in Chicago, I decide it’s time to put on a bathing suit and start getting ready for this event.
After six laps in the hotel pool, I am sputtering in exhaustion. I stumble back to my room and do the calculations. I need to swim 65 lengths nonstop just to equal 1.5 kilometres — and that is not taking into account the extra endurance I will need for swimming in the ocean. What was I thinking? I start scanning the Internet looking for help and see that the Miles Nadal JCC in Toronto has a saltwater pool and swimming instructors. Yavor Milanov has won an open-water swim competition and he’s tasked with keeping me afloat — literally.
Life lesson one: everything is about proper breathing. I learned breathing techniques to prepare for public speaking but little did I know how important it is in a pool. This was the most critical part of the lesson and took me weeks to get right, with a lot of swallowed pool water in the process.
I also began to learn how important fins are to training. They build leg strength and confidence. My instructor’s feet were the size of my fins yet my feet seemed to be the size of one of his toes. I was not built for serious swimming.
But here I am and my life suddenly takes an incredible turn.
If I’m not at the pool, I’m at the gym. I start thinking very carefully about everything I eat — pasta, all my beloved cheese — gone. And the biggest sacrifice of all is giving up my wine during the week (LCBO profits are plummeting). Weekends and the occasional weekday are my cheat days and somehow what did start as a tremendous sacrifice became a comfortable normal.
Finally, I made my 65 laps in the pool and while that may seem like a minor accomplishment to many, the process to get there has left me more than12 pounds lighter and down two dress sizes. I am in the best shape of my life and loving it.
The swim event now becomes less important in the big picture because when I dive into the beautiful waters of Carlisle Bay, Barbados, I know I have already won. Sherri Haigh is a freelance writer in Toronto. Find her at @fishinggal30 and shertravels.com.