Runners hate swimming.  And swimmers hate running.  It’s a known fact.  There are a few exceptions, of course.  Until now, I wasn’t one of those exceptions.

I started as a swimmer, as my former coaches can attest.  I started swimming because my doctor suggested it as a good form of exercise, and it was free to join.  That’s always an incentive.  So, I started going to practices, learning the strokes better and building on the lessons I had taken as a kid.  I took to competitive swimming like a fish takes to water and a cheetah to the open desert.  I didn’t think at first that I would continue with it in high school due to the 5:30 am practices, but someone convinced me.  After that, I was a goner.

Why I love swimming (and hate running):

1) Discipline – From time management to following directions to working towards a goal, swimming helped me cultivate a sustainable lifestyle cycling through school and homework and meets and practices and eating and sleeping.  It also took away the majority of my Christmas vacation for eight years, but, let’s be honest – vacation is never really vacation anyway (especially in grad school!).

2) Team – Both in high school and in college, my team was my family.  When you see each other for over twenty hours a week, you get pretty close.  Many people I have swum with over the years are still very good friends.  When you’re around these people day in and day out for so long, you see both their good side and their bad side.  And you love them anyway.

3) Water – I love water.  Not just for it’s chemical properties and unique hydrogen bonding capacity, but also because I feel like I can lose myself in my thoughts and emotions when I’m in it.  When I’m swimming (particularly a long set or long race), I don’t have to talk to anyone but God.  I don’t have to put on a happy face for anyone or act like every thing is okay.  When I’m under water, I can fall apart without fear of judgement or disdain.  I love that I can glide through the water and conquer what’s in front of me.  I can scoop it up and push it behind me.  I can kick it’s tail and move in front of it.  I can’t tell you how many times over my 8 year competitive swimming career I put a problem in front of me, figuratively, as I swam, and literally swam through it, leaving it behind.

4) Exercise – This one is fairly obvious.  It’s a low impact sport, and uses your whole body to move you through the water.  I used muscles I never thought I had when I swam!  But in terms of strokes, I used to like backstroke the best because I didn’t have to think about breath control.  I could breathe whenever I wanted.  Then I began to love butterfly, long distance butterfly to be exact.  I loved the power of the stroke and the beauty of it when watching someone do it right.  Simultaneously, I began to love distance freestyle.  I could just put my head down and swim for a long time, without having to stop, and I loved that.  I loved diving into the water and knowing that I had a little over half an hour to just let my thoughts drift and swim.

5) No running – Except for the occasional dry land workout (and the all too familiar run around Monument park and then those dreaded Stadium stairs in the summer), I got away with never running.  I hated running because I always got out of breath before everybody else.  I looked like I’d run six miles by the sweat drenching my shirt and the redness in my face but really it was only half a mile, less than 10 minutes.  You sweat in the water, of course, but you can’t tell because you’re in water, which is great.  There’s no such luck in the air.

Please do notice that I did NOT say that I enjoyed the skimpy swimsuits that we wear – in fact that is probably my least favorite part.  Particularly the speed suits that seem to hide nothing, in fact they show more than you ever want them to.

To my coaches, Rob and Skip and Laurie: You have helped to make me into the person I am today, athlete, student, and Christian.  I would not have gotten anywhere without those early morning workouts and tough sets and your encouragement.  To my doctors: thank you for suggesting that I pursue a sport.  It changed my life.  To my parents: thank you for driving me to all those practices and meets and for supporting me through all of it.  To my teammates: you are part of what made this sport enjoyable and rewarding.  Whether it was your stupid jokes or strange formations underwater or eating the food off my table during Christmas break, or that date card I pulled out of the gift exchange that year, you made it special.  Thanks.  🙂

Now that I’ve had enough injuries to warrant taking at least a break from swimming, I’ve recently taken up running with the intent of running a half marathon in about two months.  I’ve never been a good runner, or even liked running, but I’m starting to realize that the same things I learned in swimming relate to running.  I wish running was performed in water, but alas, no such luck.  But it’s not all bad, as I’m discovering.  I can put in my headphones and block out the world.  I can tell myself “just keep running, just keep running” instead of “just keep swimming, swimming, swimming” and it takes the same kind of discipline to keep going, whether it’s one mile or thirteen.  So, I suppose I have become a swrunimer.  I still love swimming and will probably always love it more than running, but I’m making peace with running (at least I better be if I’m going to be running 13.1 miles in two months!).