Noticed it two days ago actually, while pulling myself out of the pool to patter over to the bathroom. I do that a lot with exercise, go to the bathroom I mean, and how that will work with doing a triathlon is currently a mystery, potentially Depends. Anyway on a much better note, I have only had exactly four swim lessons, will have been training for less than a month (started June 1) and can now fit my hips through the ladder at pool side without angling to make them fit.

The joy this brings may mean nothing to someone who has always been athletic or thin, but to me it is a pretty big deal. My buttocks and thighs have been squeezed into opera seats,  plane seats, office chairs with arms, ladder sides, etc for most of the last ten years. These hips had one or two reprieves from their out-sized existence when I would drop near or below 200 lbs, but overall it has been a decade where everything I sit or climb on (especially with sides) has been a reminder of how I don’t fit. I find myself entering and leaving the pool more from the deep-end ladder now than the shallow end stairs, just because I can.

In the actual swimming portion of the training program,  I still can’t consistently make a half lap, never mind a whole lap, with my face in the water. I can make it about a third of the way without having to switch to backstroke. The more tired I get, the harder it is to breathe out under water, but I push a minimum of two strokes past what I think I can do, and I always complete my homework. I will take my victories where I can find them. Phil Veatch, my trainer says I haven’t lost endurance, I am just working harder when I am in the water (keeping my butt up, you know tightening the core, constant arm motion) and that is why my stamina seems less. I will take his word on it as I want to believe this to be true.