I am not a born-swimmer. My husband is.

My earliest memories of swimming swirl around the trauma of being forced to jump off of the high dive in summer lessons. Its part of a recurring nightmare I have. I did learn how to swim, however.

Even though my husband really hasn’t worked out since 2003, all he has to do is jump in a pool, and it all floats back to him. Like riding a bike. He can swim 20 laps, no labored breathing, perfect kick-turns, and longer arm strokes than you’ve ever seen. He’s got the endurance of an albatross and he doesn’t have to work at it.

I haven’t swum for exercise in about 5 years (at which time I was going through a brief sprint-triathlon phase) and when I did, it took me several months to build up endurance. For a very short time, I was good (not great) at it, but after nearly drowning in a 1/4 mile swim at the top of a mini-tri at Hermosa Beach, I gave it up (think: murky freezing water, a hundred other people splashing and kicking and a medic on a jet-ski floating nearby so that no one REALLY drowned).

I run almost daily, but swimming is different. It takes vastly different muscle groups and….its just different. The breathing is different, the concentration is different, and the burning in my shoulders is much different. I’m not born for it.

There is a pool here in the condo complex that is heated to about 80 degrees (a must since most of the week the air has been in the 50s). Chad has been taking Hope swimming every morning that we have been here in Monterey. He came back the first day eyes gleaming and proclaiming how he’d begun to swim again. There was no one in the pool so he just did a few laps! His arms and shoulders were tight, but it felt good. He was going to do it again tomorrow.

And he did. Like I said, he hasn’t worked out regularly for a long time, but he’s swum laps in the pool every day this week. I’m proud of him.

Yesterday, when I decided to brave the pool with the rest of the group, I thought I might swim a few. How hard could it be? I run and lift weights a bit. I haven’t been eating that well lately, but really? I could do this.

The form came back instantly, but the endurance didn’t. By the end of lap no. 2, I was breathing heavy and my between-breath strokes were becoming more and more difficult. Two laps!! This isn’t even a regulation pool with who-knows how many meters between edges. Regardless, I squeezed out 10 more laps with several breaks to catch my breath. I felt like I had just sprinted down the beach in a full-speed run.

I was adequately humbled and at the same time incredibly impressed with my swimmer-husband.

I did another 12 laps again this morning. Just 12. In a pool that isn’t laned for lap-swimming, I had to dodge an obstacle course of 4 year olds with water-wings, my own goggle-faced daughter, and the elderly ladies who floated around the pool like buoyant grey-haired Tinkerbells around a fairy ring. Every time I turned around to do another lap, it seemed like everyone had switched places.

Even so, I finished. I wonder if I’ve gotten too used to running; if swimming once a week wouldn’t do me some good.

I do know that I am impressed with my husband, with his ape-length arms built for a freestyle stroke. And I know that if he can work out in the pool (at our gym of course without the hazards of a community pool), then I can jump in once in awhile too.