Going postal with the one hour swim
It’s January and that means the dreaded arrival of the USMS One Hour Postal Swim. It’s not that swimming for an hour is the problem, we regularly swim longer than that in practice. The real issue is swimming for an hour straight - with no destination in sight nor any music to help us along - just the sound of our own breathing and the view of the black stripe at the bottom of the pool. This may be a distance swimmer’s dream, but us sprinters only remember the boredom, the agony and pain, caused by our inability to let go and just enjoy an hour of relaxed swimming (ok, so we’re competitive!). To make matters worse, Coach decided to actually prepare us for this event. Not only are we doing this once at the end of the month, but we’re being subjected to long distances in practice. A 20-minute swim on Tuesday, a 30-minute swim on Wednesday … I’m skipping practice for the rest of the week for fear that he might continue on this trajectory (well, really I’m busy, but I’m not sure I could handle a 40-minute practice swim tonight).
I’m collecting ideas on what to ponder during my hour swim. Current candidates include: achieving world peace, stopping climate change or maybe something a little more achievable, such as figuring out how to keep my calendar from filling up weeks in advance. Who knows what amazing solutions can be discovered while swimming 170 lengths of the pool uninterrupted at a speed of about 2.5mph?
Pah, it’s easy. Just go to your cave to be with your power animal (mine, handily, is a maninee).
Next thing you’ll know it’ll be tomorrow.