Fun With Chlorine

I used to be a swimmer.

Once upon a time, in a city far, far away, I spent more hours each day submerged in the over-chlorinated waters of the 50m pool at Waterworld, on Garnett Avenue than I spent doing anything else.
In 2005, I became something of a satellite member of the Duncan Laing Swim Squad, training under the great man himself, but outside of his usual hours. I'm amazed, on a daily basis, at the hill I scaled twice-daily that year to swim under his sometimes less-than-watchful eye. At the time I ignored it - my dream was to be the fastest, the most famous, and most successful swimmer in the world.

Upon my spectacular failing to qualify for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, after a month of mediocre splashing around in the Hamilton Municipal Pool (I laughingly referred to it then as "training"), I left the pool, midway through training in a rather inconspicuous fashion. It was that day that I stopped being a swimmer.

Olivier Marceau forgot how to swim, also...

Last year, the Waikato Times in Hamilton printed a most unflattering photo of me swimming, a few days after being named Waikato Sportswoman of the Year. I was appalled at how my technique had fallen apart, but at the same time, not really that surprised. Since leaving Mr Laing in the dying months of 2005, I'd not really listened to anyone about the declining state of my once textbook freestyle. Mr Laing, I know, along with my previous coach Johanne, would be even more disgusted than I was. Of course, given that I'd already sold my racing bike and decided an academic career - rather than a sporting one - was what I wanted to pursue, I put little thought into my horrendous swimming.

Now I face what's going to be an uphill battle to get my old freestyle back - all aspects of it. There's my once-noted kick (honed to perfection in 2003, when I spent almost nine months kicking up and down a lane for five hours each day. You know when you get pregnant, and have a kid? Yep, that's how long I spent doing kick, and nothing but kick) that needs a revival. My speed (I refuse to even attempt to record how much that's dropped off. It's bound to drive me back into an Oreo addiction). And of course, perhaps the biggest thorn in my side - my increasingly late breathing. Photos from Athens show that even then, I might have been considered a late breather. Photos from now almost beg the question "who in god's name taughtyou how to swim?".

Thankfully, I'm not completely at a loss here. The University of Otago's Physical Education School is home to what was once New Zealand's only flume. Even Michael Phelps has used it (I beat him to it - in early 2004, our entire team was flown to Dunedin for what proved to be a fruitless exercise in stroke correction. Our head coach kept the videos, claiming it was "too close" to Athens to be rendering anyone's stroke, leaving us baffled). Actually getting permission to access the flume may be a war in itself, but I'm lucky in the fact that my biomechanical knowledge with regards to swimming is pretty damn good. I even got some awards for it in high school, after "successfully adapting backstroke to increase speed and decrease energy output", thank you very much. Sure, I'll probably cry the first few times I watch the tape, but once I get over that, I'm going to know exactly what it is I need to fix to get my stroke back to its former glory.

Why, you might ask?

Well, it's all in the name of winning XTERRA races next year. It's a set-in-stone fact that my victory at ITU Worlds last year came as a direct result of the massive lead I gained in the swim. If I'm swimming the same way I did when I was an international-level swimmer, and not just triathlete, then there's a good chance I can do even better next year. Whether I admit it happily or not, mountain biking is just not my foray (sorry if I've led you to believe otherwise!) and I'm going to need to be out on those dusty lava fields as far ahead of everyone else as possible.

Eek.

And like, seriously - it can't be that hard. When Dara Torres got back in the water to attempt a qualifying standard for the Sydney Olympics (after retiring in 1984), Richard Quick actually stopped her and said "we don't swim like that anymore". She won three medals in Sydney, and in Beijing won silver in the 50m freestyle race at 41 years old. I'm actually a little bit excited about learning to swim again.