Returning

We have a new section on Slowtwitch which has gained a lot of praise, chiefly because of the wonderfully written columns by Alison Colavecchia. We have a lot of fun with Beginner’s Luck, and I especially enjoy writing the beginner’s training program.

This, though, is about returning. I’d say I’m a shell of my former Ironself, but "shell" connotes something lesser than the former iteration. I’m certainly not lesser. There’s more of me now. But there’s less of me than there was a year ago, and even a month ago. And there’ll be less of me a month from now.

I’m returning from whence I came. I am on a search for the me that was lost. It’s in here somewhere. It’s not just the smaller me I’m trying to find, but the faster me. If I can marry that to the wiser, more sober me I’ll be a very happy man.

I’m entered in the Wildflower half-Ironman, which takes place in about seven weeks. I haven’t been swimming. I don’t mean I haven’t been swimming much. Let me put it this way: Today I did my first actual pool workout of the year. In fact, my last one was 12 years ago.

First, there was the challenge of getting into a pool. Any pool. You can read about this in Civic duty.

I finally found an open pool in Carlsbad. I didn’t want to go there because people in that pool know me. A lot of San Diego’s pros and top age-groupers swim there, and I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself in front of these people. Okay, I’d been swimming in the ocean a number of times over the winter trying out one wetsuit after another, and fine-tuning the patterns––well, my size––on Emilio De Soto’s T1 wetsuit. But I hadn’t been regularly training.

When I did finally get into a pool, I was Rip Van Winkle. I didn’t remember anything except the stuff I remembered perfectly, and all of the latter was recalled through a 1989 lens. It was the weirdest sensation to not remember anything cognitively, but to have decades of routine pushing me around the deck and back and forth in the lane.

As I say, in a way it felt a little like the first time I’d ever been in a public pool. Where do I put my clothes? Which direction do we go when we swim circles? I forgot all that, or thought I did.

Even prior to that, I had to get a new suit. I’m 44 years old. Will I fit into these things anymore? And goggles. I’ve been wearing a Seal Mask out in the ocean, and it’s great. But hey, I’ve got limits. No way I’m going to wear that in a pool. I’ll already look enough like a fat, hairy geek. Will goggles fit me? Which ones can I now wear.

I got myself sorted, though, and into the water I went. A push off the wall and I was swimming. It all pretty much felt natural. I could still do all the strokes, all the stroke drills, flip turns––everything worked without any problem. In a way it was like I’d never left, except I was monstrous slow. I was moving like a 45rpm single, but the clock was moving at 78-speed.

I went about a thousand or 1200 meters. My arms were ready for a break. I got out. Barely. I forgot that pulling oneself up out of the pool was a bit of a strain after a hard workout.

Even in the locker room I had all these autopilot notions occurring to me. For example, while in the shower I got this thought that there was something I’ve got to do to my hair. You know, to get the chlorine out. Then I remembered I don’t have any hair (I have it coifed Aryan Nation-style).

Funny juxtaposition, this realization that I’m older now, yet every feeling I have, every hope, expectation, sense of drive, intention to accomplish, is all exactly, precisely the same as it was when I was 25 years old.

Returning is a great experience. Better than the first time. I know all the stuff. I know how to do everything. The fitness is gone, but the motor-learned skills got hard-wired into my circuits years ago. I just have to whip the body back into form.

Generally I'm trying to advise and instruct in these articles. But I don't have any advice to give on returning, just that it feels like unexpectedly happening upon a coveted place long ago lost and fondly remembered.