EIGHT WEEKS AGO, something seemed like a good idea at the time and, all of a sudden, once I agreed to it, felt like the complete opposite.
Most of you have probably seen the vide from week 6 now. If you haven’t, the clip detailing my attempts to learn to swim is below.
What, then, of the last big weeks in my challenge?
I haven’t quite ‘mastered’ the art of swimming but at least now I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence: I can swim.
Because, yes, I can now swim.
I mightn’t be qualifying for the Olympic Games anytime soon or battling the currents in one of those madcap challenges that some folk do across local lakes but, for now, I’m quite happy to report that the last eight weeks have been a success.
When Gavin Doran called me one day and invited me to partake in the Swim Academy at the Aura Leisure Centre, I agreed on the spot. And instantly regretted it.
Not only had I agreed to go swimming – well, go learning to swim – but I decided that it’d be a good idea to put the whole journey into a diary format.
You know what?
It was a brilliant decision.
[adrotate group=”37″]The last eight weeks have flown by. At times, they’ve been maddening; at others, I felt like giving up, unfulfilled and beaten by the challenge.
Daniel McConnell has been the instructor, ever-eager and always-willing on Thursday nights to get us to go that extra mile in pursuit of the perfect stroke.
The early weeks were fine and the progress stark. The legs kicking and the arms swinging were the easy parts.
The middle weeks and the attempts to breathe where when the frustration kicked in. For what seemed an eternity, that inability to take a coherent breath was stunting the advancement, your intrepid writer gasping for air every half-a-dozen strokes or so.
Janice McCready had a brainwave of capturing the challenge on video and that coincided with the perfect breath one night. Perhaps the threat of Janice’s iPhone at poolside was the key; whatever it was, I was happy in the water again for the last two or three weeks.
[adrotate group=”37″]It was a strange sense after those early moments. Getting into the water was never something I’d ‘feared’, but it was something I’d eternally avoided. It was too much like hard work, if I’m being honest.
There were times when I felt as if I’d made the worst call imaginable in chronicling the story and the journey. Nights where I’d wonder‘Should I go back at all?’.
Thanks to a combination of persuasion and encouragement – not to mention a bit of old-fashioned thranness! – I stuck it out.
And it was worth it.
So many people have sent messages throughout the last two months. Many of those messages are from people who cannot swim. My message to you is this: Get on the phone and book lessons.
Anyone who knows me will testify how big an achievement it was to get me in the water to do this.
[adrotate group=”37″]At the end of week eight, I’ve rarely felt as accomplished. It wasn’t quite the full length of the pool, but my last endeavours for now in the water at the Aura Leisure Centre were the best yet.
Thanks to the staff of the Aura’s Swim Academy, I got out onto dry land again and could now call myself a swimmer of sorts, even one of the very novice variety. To Gavin and Daniel, I’ll be eternally grateful for their patience, their effort and, above all, their attention to detail.
I’ll not leave it so long the next time. At that rate I’ll be 58 when I next venture!! After 29 years of avoiding it, I did it, I got through it and, best of all, I actually enjoyed it.
I didn’t quite take to it like a duck to water. Keep an eye out over the coming days for the latest video on my exploits in the water and you’ll see the satisfaction I got from this.
There really are no excuses here. If you’re reading this, think no more – just do it!
You won’t regret it.
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