Looking at the 50m Olympic pool from our hotel room balcony brought back many memories. The bright blue water shining underneath the clear, sunny lanzarotenian (is that even a word?) sky looked incredibly inviting from the moment we got there.
Just the morning before the competition, my last morning as a 30-year-old, I dove in and swam 1100m in half an hour, realizing what 10+ years of dry land with the exception of showers can do to one’s aquatic endurance. Back then I used to feel like I could swim from Tenerife to Gran Canaria if I wanted to. To make matters worse, I was freshly coming out of a 7-night shift combo, severely sleep deprived and with a week worth of ZERO exercise on my back (which I definitely felt as well based on the full-body muscle soreness the Monday morning BodyPump session instantly gave me).
Hence, with stiff limbs full of microscopic fiber trauma, on the morning of my birthday, I showed up at the pool with a “let’s give this a try and participate for the sake of it with no expectations” kind of mindset. Then again, I am more of a competitive personality than I like to admit, so all that laid-backness disappeared and soon as I was standing on the verge of lane 5, swimming cap and goggles in place, heart racing, with fellow competitors on both sides.
Jumping in and starting the race definitely increased the flashback intensity of those weekend mornings back in high school what feels like two million years ago. I felt the same excitement, the same adrenaline rush and also sense of dread and stress as I did back then, while focusing all of my energy on propelling myself in the water while keeping an eye on the swimmers around me, as much as the quick neck movements, the fogged-up goggles and the blur or water and bubbles can allow. I caught glimpses of my family from our balcony, screaming and signaling with cheerful and silly gestures that made me smile wide enough for them to notice.
Once again, though, I felt my body give in what I interpreted as prematurely, compared to what my performance used to be almost two decades ago. And so, I was very surprised when I turned out first female to get out of the water, and second swimmer overall. Same happened with the biking segment, at which I felt significantly more comfortable, since I live with my Canyon attached to my butt during the summer.
It was the running that almost killed me (I suspect potentially in a more literal way than I actually jokingly mean, as I’d never experienced that near throw-up exhaustion from physical exercise before, with a pulse of probably up to 200 bpm at one point). Leaving the bike saddle and the easy resistance of a quick pedaling pace to push my legs against hard concrete for several kilometers on end under the scorching sun was a demanding and kind of discouraging contrast to face. But having Guillermo hovering around as much as he could with his phone in hand while cheering for me was annoyingly helpful, until I was finally taken over by the first female. However, I managed to maintain my position and I still finished second, with a pretty good mark for someone with full-body muscle soreness and severe sleep deprivation.
I felt the endorphins all day, with a deep sense of accomplishment and ease, and I slept like a baby in a coma that night. Probably one of my best birthday experiences.
A part of me (the competitive one) wonders how much faster I would have been, hadn’t I had a week-long break from working out just before the competition, if I wasn’t sore, and if I, say, ran a bit more than I do. Biking and running in a wet swimsuit, doing so on the Canary Islands, with my family cheering for me all the way through, setting foot on a podium after so many years, a shiny new prize, a free t-shirt and silicone cap… All of that was great. But I am also excited about this renewed love for swimming as a sport and the possibility of going for another triathlon event under better conditions sometime in the future.
After finally trying out CrossFit, I realize it’s probably not for me. As cool and challenging as it is, there is undeniable beauty and benefits in cardiovascular and muscular endurance, in something as esthetically pleasing, healthy and safe (for the joints) as swimming.
And so, I’ve resolved to turn that into my main winter activity in Basel.
