Well, I came into this hoping to learn to swim, to breathe and to hopefully make it past that 12.5m barrier from my first swimming lesson.  I thought those were reasonable goals and that I could build my way up, so I set the ambitious target of 1km.  I have to say after struggling my way down the pool to get to 25m and 50m in the first few sessions I had a feeling it would be a difficult journey… One paved with uncertainty and almost guaranteed walls to hit somewhere along the way.

I went for another swim today, my 9th since I started 2 weeks and 2 days ago.  I have learned a lot since then, and changed my mind a whole lot of times about how I wanted to learn, haha. But one thing surprised me today; there were no walls!

That’s right, after doing 400m last session and being thwarted partway through but not feeling tired, I decided to get in the water today and swim as far as I could, hoping to beat 500m.  I did, I got to 550m and mid breath got asked to move the the next lane over because they were covering the pool, so I swam the width of the pool all the way to the other side because I knew they covered that lane last and I wouldn’t get interrupted.  Then I carried on, so no break, just a change in direction.  I got to 700 and as I did an open turn I checked the clock… not 6:45pm yet, we’re still good.  Josh was inside in the sauna and I was hoping he wouldn’t come out and say he was ready to go, haha.  Then came 800m, only 200m left to go.  At 900m I swallowed some water, but coughed on the next breath because like hell I was stopping then!

Two lengths later I touched the end having reached my 1km goal!

I then also heard my name because Josh was calling out saying he was ready to go.  Lucky timing; he would have been annoyed if he’d come out any earlier because I wouldn’t have been stopping, haha.  I could have done a couple more lengths I reckon, but I had to go.  I had no time for a victory lap, so this’ll do:

Victory Lap… Just merge these together in your head.  Damn I want cake.

So yeah.  It seems a bit ridiculous having a blog now.  It took me 2 weeks and 3 days from my first ever swimming lesson to swim 1km continuously doing freestyle and bilateral breathing. I was NOT expecting that!

So congratulations me, and thanks to everyone else who encouraged me.  Next stop: an under 25 second 25m sprint.  Maybe one day under 20 seconds.