This isn’t going to become a blog about fitness and exercise. But there is a bit of a crossover between travel and adventure and exercise – see the existence of Outdoor Fitness magazine.Swimming isn’t technically outdoors, not how I do it, but in light of watersports, I think it’s in the spirit. Couch to 5K definitely is. Where do I draw the line between hiking for fitness and hiking for fun? So I’m going to try to get in the habit of talking occasionally about outdoor fitness-type subjects here.
I’ve tried and tried to write a blog about swimming. The trouble is that I don’t know exactly what I want to say.
I know that the biggest thing I want to say is that you don’t have to be good at it. Some of the people at work who are physically able to swim, who learned as kids and haven’t done it since, say things like “I can’t do the sideways breathing” or “I’m too slow” or “I can’t do the legs properly”. I swim at least twice a month and I’m hoping to get myself in gear this year and go most weeks, if not quite every week. Every single thing they had to say was a thing I would say myself. I’m not a “good” swimmer. I was first put in a pool before I could even walk and I had swimming lessons until I was eleven or so. I can cheerfully swim for 50 lengths and at the moment I can manage 60 every now and then but I’m not going to be winning any style competitions, or any speed competitions, or any other competitions you can imagine. I can’t do the sideways breathing. My legs won’t join in front crawl. Backstroke makes my neck hurt. I mostly stay in the slow lane. I sometimes use a float. It’s ok for me to do that. Why do you think it’s not ok for you to do that?
Last year I set myself the medal-incentivised goal of swimming 100 lengths (well, 100 lengths of a standard 25m pool, so 2.5km) every month and because I had the time, I did 250 in June and October. The end result was that I swam twenty-three and a half miles – that’s across the Channel and nearly halfway back – in the year and I went to the pool 36 times that I otherwise wouldn’t have done. 23.5 miles in a year doesn’t sound so far – some people can walk that in a single day – but that’s equal to more than 1500 lengths which is an average of 42 lengths per session and a session every week and a half. I bet you don’t know many people who swim that much.
The thing is that I enjoy swimming. It’s my main form of exercise. That’s mostly because I don’t really like any other forms. I tried the gym in October and very quickly decided it wasn’t for me. The treadmill made me feel seasick and it galls to think of paying a significant sum to do something I could do outside at home in the evenings, which is partly why I’ve started Couch to 5K. I don’t like running but it turns out I can tolerate it if I feel like I’m achieving something. It’s also partly because the comedian Angela Barnes said that she’d done it and was so encouraging that I feel a bit like I’m letting her down if I don’t. And also because the doctor at the contraceptive clinic has some old-fashioned ideas about BMI and I want to walk into the office in April and tell her that (give or take the weekend of winter camp) that I’ve run three times a week every week since I last saw her.
One thing I like about swimming is the wet and the heat. I spend most of my evenings in the bath. I don’t like cold water – I barely passed my Yachting Level 2 award a couple of years ago because we were required to capsize and right the dinghy – but even if a swimming pool is chillier than I like, the atmosphere is generally warm and damp. I think I also like that pools are play spaces as well as exercise spaces. If I want to swim lengths for an hour, I can, but if I want to bob around in the shallow end and make up stories, I can do that too. I can play with a pool noodle or I can use it as a tool to exercise my legs. And no one cares. That’s another thing my colleagues are worried about, I think. Other swimmers watching them and judging them. That’s not how it works. No one’s watching. No one cares. Everyone’s preoccupied with either their own lengths or with enjoying themselves. I have no idea how good 95% of the other swimmers are, no idea what aids they’re using or why. Do other people do the correct breathing? Probably not but I’ve never thought to look for it.
Being able to swim – being able to keep yourself afloat, really – is a handy skill. Last summer I really discovered watersports. I went out kayaking in a solid plastic kayak and in a very wobbly inflatable one. I hired a rowing boat and rowed up the river. I took my Rangers for a watersports evening of kayaking and stand up paddleboarding. This year I’ve got a County adult watersports taster morning in May and I’m taking my Brownies to the full day version in June. You can do most of that without being able to swim but it gives you a lot more confidence to know that if you fall in, you don’t have to drown. I absolutely would not be taking my inflatable kayak out to sea – yes, I took it out to sea. I understand the sea better than rivers or lakes – if I wasn’t confident in my swimming abilities. And also wearing a wetsuit and buoyancy aid.
I mean, there are plenty of good things about swimming but I wanted to make the point about it being pleasant exercise, even for people who don’t think they’re good enough. You don’t have to be “good enough” at anything. There’s no panel of judges sitting by your local pool deciding who’s allowed in. There’s no one to tell me whether I’m good enough at running to try Couch to 5K. There’s no gatekeeper at your local adult ballet who decides that only people who can keep up with Darcy Bussell can participate. I let people into my archery lessons even if they’re not Olympic standard. If you enjoy something, you can do it.Oh, of course there are some activities that require you to be safe – I’ve never found a climbing wall that didn’t require an induction of some kind to demonstrate that you know how to put on a harness and know how to belay before they’d let you in but activities like that will be very obvious. In fact, anything out of your comfort zone, maybe start with an expert. I didn’t just buy a kayak and head out to sea – I’d been on three or four guided paddles in a safe bay with a qualified instructor before I launched my inflatable one. I wouldn’t start gymnastics by hurling myself backwards off a wall and hoping that I managed to do a backflip and land on my feet. Maybe you should take swimming lessons if you’re starting from zero but the people I’m talking about aren’t starting from zero. They need confidence and practice.
(I say activities that require some safety training will be obvious: sometimes you need to boast on Twitter about the adventure you’re not competent to have without dying to be told that this is one of those activities you need some prior knowledge of.)
Exercise is boring. I think everyone agrees with that. But sport and activity are fun and they’re inherently exercise. For me, fun and fitness collide in swimming and even though I’ll never be competition standard – or ever want to be – I’m going to carry on enjoying it and becoming stronger.