Swimmer? Okay, maybe not. But closer.

I wrote this Wednesday night and never posted. Update: in last night's swim I was able swim further without breaks in my new swim "style". That said, old habits die hard, and I feel like all I do while swimming is think...I think about my arms and my hips go back to their sway, I think about my hips and stroke is sloppy again. I wish it were more natural for me, but I'm working at it slow and steady, and I suppose that given my swimming status I should just feel grateful that I haven't required lifeguard assistance yet! Next post will be up soon - we've adopted another two wheeled family member, and spent four hours touring the back roads of our gas infested stomping ground together today. It was almost a complete win.

When I say I "learned to swim" this past July, I really mean that I attempted and succeeded putting my face in the water, breathing to the side, swinging my arms and kicking my legs. I have since called it swimming.

It gets me from one end of a pool to the other over and over and over, and it got me through (heavily wetsuit aided) the Syracuse 70.3. It just gets me these places very slowly. Swim workout after swim workout, I go to what I know...face in the water, breathe to the side, swing my arms, and kick my legs. And move painfully slowly.

Now I know I'm biased here, but Mike's middle name may as well be Phelps. He's a swimmer extraordinaire. Or at least was "back in the day" and is still very good. He's been patiently giving me little swimming tips whenever we swim together. I felt as though as I was a lost cause though when last Saturday's only "tip" was "I think you just have very little upper body strength". And I had become resigned to calling anything under the two hour and twenty minute cut off time in the ironman a win for the day.

Tonight in the Elk Lake pool, Mike's faith in me must have been renewed, and he started offering all kinds of advice. Advice on stroke. I'd work on it for 100. Advice on kicking. Work on it. And then he did something magical - he mocked me. He swam for me the way he sees me swim. I look ridiculous. I asked if I REALLY moved my hips that much, and he said yes, and so I asked why he never told me to stop, and he assured me that he's told me plenty of times, but that he assumed I just couldn't stop because I hadn't.

So I stopped. No more thrashing my hips about. I swam the next 25 yards in literally 1/3 of the time I have ever swam the length of a pool before. Keeping everything straight and long, I swam another and another and another. And Mike said "I can't believe it...you look like a swimmer." I could've cried.

Now mind you - I still suck. A lot. Swimming that way was hard work. I had to rest between every 50. And I have a lot of work I need to commit to doing just to successfully get through the swim at Lake Placid regardless of time. But for today, my Mike Phelps called me a "swimmer".