It feels like the off-season, which is not technically true because there's still quite a bit of swimming happening, but swimming definitely doesn't have the carefree, always-keep-a-suit-in-your-bag-in-case quality of summertime. Now swimming occurs in tiny chlorinated windows that require planning and layers and strategies for not letting your hair freeze on the way home. I'm not complaining, swimming is always glorious whether it's sky overhead, or a cement ceiling, sand underfoot or grotty tiles, but it's definitely a different season for Swimming Holes We Have Known.

A collection of recent swimmy things:

1). I read on Twitter that someone dressed their kid up as Penny Oleksiak for Halloween. How amazing is that?! Pure gold. I already made our family costume (that is sadly not swimming related) otherwise *I'd* want to go as Penny!

2). I was chatting this afternoon with my fast lane buddy who I haven't seen since the spring, and after catching up about our best summer swims, he told me about a guy who gets his hair cut  by the same barber, who swims to work. IN TORONTO!!! He gets in Lake Ontario at Mimico and swims downtown. Isn't that something!?! If you know of this fella, put me in touch! I'd so love to chat with him!

3). I missed my swim windows for almost 2 weeks and was starting to feel squirrley, but finally made it for a midweek swim this week only to find out that the schedule had changed in my absence and there was only 10 minutes left. Usually I would be so frustrated, but somehow I was just so thrilled to be able to swim, even for 10 minutes, that I enjoyed every second of it. 

4). After my swim this afternoon, the change room was silent except for a handful of women getting changed. Usually people are chatting but there was something so comforting about the sound of a brush through chlorinated hair, the snap of bathing suit straps, the wrinkle of caps being removed (If you listen carefully, you can hear foreheads sigh in relief...)

5). My toddler and I have made it to two swim classes so far -- that's 200% more swim class than last term. And with the additional crowd sourced tips, Class 2 was even better than Class 1. (Also, can every parent/caregiver who gets their kid to even one swimming lesson a term get a badge and/or bottle of wine?!)

Happy swimming, even if it is for 10 minutes...

I am not fast. I prefer slow and steady – with swimming, running when I used to run, biking, even writing. I prefer the half marathon to the 5K, novel writing and an hour of the same steady stroke in the pool.

My fast lane friend is a sprinter. He does 50m as hard as possible, then catches his breath in the shallow end. He does that for almost an hour and I realized on Saturday it has been years since I sprinted. Probably since a coach insisted I do it (and that would've been in high school!)

But I wrote a short story the other week (with the really short deadline!) I worked hard, really early in the mornings and it was exhilarating and surprisingly fun. After a week I pressed "send" and decided it was time to do the swimming version of short story writing. Now for the last 10 minutes of every swim, I sprint. It is hard and I feel a bit like vomiting, my lungs aching, my heart pounding.

"The only way to go fast is to go fast," my triathlete fast lane friend noted and it's true. Outside of technique, all my slow and steady lengths can't really prepare me for these mad bursts, but it is time to go fast, at least for 10 minutes at a time. Because I can, because why not, because it's surprisingly fun to feel my heart thudding in my throat.

Pools have archetypes: the elderly lady in the flowered bathing cap doing head up breast stroke in the slow lane, the triathlete who carries her gear in a mesh bag and wears an Iron Man bathing cap, the older man who does whip kick and butterfly arms on his back and takes over entire lanes with his wide arm-and-leg radius. And then the amazing swimmer who is clearly part-dolphin and part liquid mercury, whose flip turns are what my dreams are made of.

And then there is always the middle-aged dude who holds court in the fast lane. I don't think I have ever been at a pool without this guy standing in the fast lane, not swimming, of course, talking to the regulars (anyone who will talk to him really), discussing intervals and splits and technique. He's the guy who judges everyone's stroke (loudly! Vocally!). The guy who offers unsolicited coaching tips, the guy who tells you you're not kicking from your hips, that you've got to work on your entry, to watch your crossover. The guy whose ego is so big, he will only swim his 4, maybe 6 lengths wearing fins to ensure he'll actually pass people. 

I can't stand this guy, his ego, his machismo, his mansplaining swimming when his stroke is never very strong. 

But after the lifeguard blows the whistle, and length swim ends, I wonder if he feels small and deflated, walking across the deck to the change room, his chlorine-scented power leaking from him.

I wonder if he starts counting down the minutes until the next length swim while he towels off. I wonder if his heart leaps when he locks his sensible shoes in a locker, the quarter ca-chunking as he turns the key.