How I Met My Serious Swimming

[shaulis]

D67,

This is an inspiring story you wrote. I hope we all learned to set goals but to set mini goals as well so we don't give up on the main goal.

[Dooley67]

Thanks for all the positive comments guys; I really appreciate it.

[Swimmboy]

Thanks for sharing your story with us. It has similarities to mine - I did not know how to swim until college, where I took 'Beginners Swimming' - if you can imagine 20 or so adults learning how to blow bubbles under water, hold the side of the pool and learn to kick, etc. The college provided us with suits - made of a rough, coarse fabric, with maybe 5" sides? After a couple weeks of those itchy suits, I bought my first Speedo at a Herman's Sporting Goods store (if anyone remembers those) - it was just a plain Navy blue nylon suit (this around 1980). I was nervous buying it - but not really for any 'sexual' reason, I was afraid people would laugh at me for thinking myself a "real swimmer", since only real swimmers wore Speedos. Have been swimming ever since, in Speedos, TYR, The Finals, and Monsterpolo (favorite colors and very brief style, but they are low in the back and let too much water flow into the 'seat' area of the suit). Anyway, I joined a Masters team in the 90s and still swim with them - most members are very welcoming to swimmers of all abilities, so if you have a USMS team in your neighborhood, give them a try - you can swim as often or as little as you want, get out early if you get too tired, etc. It helps to have motivation from your lane mates!

[Dooley67]

Thanks for your supportive suggestion about a Masters team and thanks for sharing your story Swimmboy. I don't think I'm really interested in Masters swim right now because one of the things I like about the swimming I'm doing is that it is very solitary, a time I can do a lot of thinking, the same thing I've done with running many years ago and walking currently.

I do remember Herman's Sporting Goods. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY and there was, and maybe still is, a large Herman's in lower Manhattan.

Do you remember Davega Sporting Goods? There was one in a shopping area near where I lived and that's where I got the blue and white striped brief I mentioned in my story. I also got my first baseball glove there at the age of 9, about 58 years ago, a Mickey Mantle model which I still have.

D67

[Swimmboy]

No, never heard of Davega Sports store. I'm not from the NYC area - the Herman's I went to was in suburban DC. It closed many years ago - probably the mid or late 80s?