Wow! It's been nearly three months since I've posted here. Since my last post, I've received the Covid-19 vaccine and life is starting to take a shape of returning to normal. Or I'm creating a new normal. There are some things I don't want to lose emerging from this pandemic. Some lessons I don't want to forget.
And maybe this pandemic is not quite over yet. I do have colleagues in other parts of the world whose countries are really struggling and for them - the pandemic is not over. I should be careful about judging this pandemic situation based on my personal situation - how it affect my life.
Onto the lessons I don't want to forget.
1) It's ok to slow down and let go of the pressure to be ultra productive. For someone who is perfectionistic, this hasn't always been easy. When things were shut down and I was playing things safe, I wasn't always as productive as I thought I should be and eventually I realized that everything I thought I should be doing, or ought to be doing, just to cross it off a list I had made, wasn't always the most important thing in that moment of time.
At the beginning of 2020, I had set a swim goal to swim so many miles. That quickly changed and by the end of 2020 the goal was to get some sort of exercise period. Starting 2021, I didn't set any exercise goals, any exercise goal was still to just exercise a few times each week. Now that I'm vaccinated and mask mandates have loosened somewhat, I did set a goal to swim 110 miles by the end of this calendar year. But my swimming habits have changed.
I thought I would write a blog piece sooner with reflections that I would then share on a Facebook group page with a lot of co-workers. But I didn't, I just wrote a longer comment instead. And it's ok to have not met that productivity goal.
My introverted self really does enjoy the slowing down bit that was encouraged by the pandemic. What created the anxiety wasn't slowing down - it's was the uncertainty of Covid-19 itself. Would I get it? How bad might it be? How big of a risk factor is high blood pressure?
2) It's ok to be slower getting back into a swim routine, and even evolve into a new swim routine. The venue where I was swimming in early 2020 used Covid-19 as an excuse (so it seems to many of us) to discontinue letting Greenville Masters use their facilities for a formal, coached-from-the-deck workout. That meant the group of swimmers I used to swim with every Monday and Wednesday night fell apart. There are members of our Greenville Masters Swim Club who will workout together and there might be shared piece of paper as a workout - but the dynamics changed.
I ending up discontinuing my membership at the venue due to Covid-19 (I wasn't using the venue for any sort of workout), my job situation changed to where I was unemployed, and Greenville Masters workouts wouldn't be continuing. This led to the long break in swimming.
But in March of this year, I returned to the pool and shortly their after I formally rejoined a pool. It was a process to determine which pool to join. The venue that was closest to my house no longer had a formal Greenville Masters program at night; but it was closest to my house. I'm not a morning person and since the pandemic I might be even less of a morning person. Waking up early, to go to a pool farther away for a group workout isn't ideal. I love swimming but I love morning sleep more. I determined the best way to get back to the pool was to rejoin the venue closest to where I live. Working from home most of the time contributed to this would be the closest and most convenient location.
I have signed up for the open water swim at Lake Jocassee this September but have missed several of the open water group swims. This weekend, the remnants of a Tropical Storm passed through the area and I didn't think that made for a good open water swim experience. And there's also the migraine-like headaches I almost always get whenever a storm system (tropical or wintry weather) moves through.
But when I slow down to reflect, I don't always miss the actual workouts. There are plenty of workouts published - the sets of doing 50's, 100's, 200's at a certain speed or a certain stroke. But my new swim routine that is shaping up is my just going to swim - trying to get a little over a half-mile in each swim. And I try to swim that first half-mile without stopping, without taking a break. I can swim that half mile in roughly 22 minutes which means that my pace is pretty much the same as it was it was pre-Covid-19. And I count that as a win!
So here's to fewer defined workouts for me and embracing the longer, distance type workout swims. I miss the old swim group (the people I swam with) but I'm just as happy grabbing a lane and swimming those longer distances, counting strokes, sometimes thinking through the day and or other creative thinking.
3) It's ok to be a slow swimmer. It's ok to be a slow swimmer. Yes, it's ok to be slow swimmer. During the pandemic, I discovered a Facebook group (out of the UK) called slow swimming. It's a group of people who seek out outdoor swimming: oceans, rivers, creeks but do so in a leisurely fashion. They go for exercise and to enjoy the surroundings. I immediately became intrigued and have enjoyed seeing photos of their adventures.
Don't get me wrong - I admire the faster swimmers in my swim club, Olympians, what have you. I'm happy to try and learn new tips and new techniques. But I never want to the learning or striving to become faster to become so much of a chore that I fail to enjoy the surroundings. My favorite part of any swim is just relaxing after the swim and floating on my back, gazing at the clouds.
When I tell people that I am a member of a Masters swim club - I do think they sometimes feel a bit intimidated. I've never felt excluded or pressured in any way by any member in my swim club. Any pressure to get better or faster comes from within me But for me - it's perfectly fine to swim slower. But this doesn't mean I have lost any competitive streak. I can still start and end a swim with a 200 breast stroke. If you are swimming next to me, we are secretly racing (I beat a man yesterday who was swimming back stroke and was using my kickboard). I'm happy to have taken such a long break from the pool and still maintain my swim times and simply enjoying the swimming - even if I'm slow compared to the faster swimmers. Just keep swimming, swim the distance - it's so much more enjoyable for me to get in a pace, rhythm, and just maintain it than stopping and then going again. Here's an article I found recently and I could really relate with the author: Life in the slow lane: embracing the leisurely swim | Swimming | The Guardian
4) There are still lessons I need to learn. While there are clearly some lessons, reflections I want to carry with me into shaping a new normal - there are still some areas for growth. I'm still not a peace with the fact that I'm not a morning person. I have yearned to be more of a morning person for years. But I'm not and I don't see that ever changing, ever. I do think working at home is easier. I can get more sleep in the mornings. I don't have to get super dressy (which saves time). And yet, I still set my alarm clock earlier 6:00 AM or so thinking I will get up and do all sort of things before starting my work day. I'm far more productive starting around 9:00 AM through after normal working hours. But I still haven't full accepted this fact about myself. Maybe one day I will though. So in emerging into a new normal, shaping of new routines - I need to remember that I don't know everything, that I haven't mastered all things and there are still lessons I need to learn.