22 weeks till Christmas

Summer 2017

It's been a bit of a disappointing summer on the swimming front. I can't even count the number of times I've gotten myself suited up, only to arrive at the pool and be turned away – thunder, often, and the occasional fouling. I have a a 4-month-old which makes mid-day swims tricky (anyone want to walk my baby up and down the boardwalk while I swim??) And I also have a 2.5-year-old which, combined with the baby, makes zipping off for a 7-8pm length swim near impossible. Oh, and then, on a glorious sunny day, I organized all the kids to be taken care of and flew down to the pool, and then was verbally assaulted and it was horrible to say the least. So yah, swimming + me + summer are not jiving like usual.

BUT, I went swimming this morning. The sky was beyond blue and the sun sparkled off the lake like handfuls of tossed diamonds. I walked on deck with a pair of women who I overheard saying, "It's already August, summer's almost over."

"NOT OVER!" I couldn't help but almost-yell (there was definitely panic in my voice).

"You know what I read today on Facebook?" the other woman asked. "It's only 22 weeks till Christmas."

AND THAT RIGHT THERE IS WHY I SWAM NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE TODAY.


Swim number one was filled with lovely, respectful fast lane swimmers and swim two took place under an increasingly ominous sky. It was my 4-month-old's very first pool experience and it was wonderful, though very short-lived because after dipping her toes in, there was thunder AND lightning and the pool closed*.

Still, SWIMMING. Twice. With tacos and paletas and patio cocktails in between. Because summer**.



* Note to self: don't ever bother getting the kids in sunscreen and swim diapers and bathing suits with packed snacks and water and towels and hats and get excited about a family dip because there will inevitably be thunder and/or lightning and you will end up at home in your not-wet suit making dark and stormy cocktails AGAIN...

**Thirty-three days until the outdoor pools close. I'm going as often as humanly possible.
  • Lindsay
  • Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Back in

my local

I have never been so thrilled to see these grotty tiles and worn wooden bench as I was this week. It had been 16 (looooooong!) days since my last swim and there were skylights instead of sky, and the water was so warm it was more bathwater than pool water, but it was still amazing. Back and forth and back and forth. It was exactly where I needed to be.

The most incredible part of the swim though was the elderly man who walked onto the pool deck mid-way through the hour. He took slow deliberate steps to the pool deck, limping in a way that suggested he had maybe had a stroke. He slipped into the water, ducked under the lane rope to the fast lane and proceeded to tear up the pool. Full on blazing. He swam circles around all of us. It was incredible.

And then I worked and worked and worked all afternoon, my skin still smelling of chlorine. I biked across the city for a meeting with goggle marks still ringing my eyes and biked home in the early dark, and arrived home to mail (YAY!) and if that wasn't exciting enough, it was a pass to one of my favourite pools from one of my new swimming friends, Lindsay of Masters' Swimming fame! Swimming pals are the best pals. 



  • Lindsay
  • Friday, September 23, 2016

Farewell, beloved outdoor swimming

summer 2016

Labour Day Monday marked the last day for swimming outside in Toronto, and with air show madness down by the water, it almost didn't happen. But I persevered, and on attempt 2, I made it into Sunnyside's beautiful turquoise blue. It was totally packed, deep end to shallow end and every square inch of deck space and it was mayhem in the lane swim area, but it was still such a perfect final dip.

I swam back and forth, dodging late summer flailing arms and untamed kicks, reflecting on this most incredible summer of swimming. And what a glorious summer it has been complete with:
- kicking off the swimming season in Lake Ontario
- a swimming road trip with my swimming ladies
- my very first midnight dip
- CLIFF JUMPING – and celebrating a year of swim blogging
- the best swimming-centric family vacation, complete with a playpen on the dock!
- learning to jump into water, instead of taking forever on the ladder
- being so inspired by Penny Oleksiak (who started school today - ha!)
- knowing that my hero Mark Tewksbury read this blog (I might have wept!!)
- learning about, and swimming in the silkiest black water
- tackling my longest swim yet (also the most boring!)
- the second round of swim badges
- swimming with my kiddo all over the west end of Toronto
- sharing my love of Toronto swimming with CBC radio's Matt Galloway
- SO! MANY! DOCKTAILS!



Fittingly, at the end of my dip, my favourite beach towel, the one I've had since 1998 when I was lifeguarding indoors (worst!), tore. Sob. And now the pools are closed for the season (except for a few hours a day at Alex Duff pool!), and I will have to relive this glorious summer in turquoise photos and scraps of float-y poems I've penned on the edge of pools and lakes and rivers.


  • Lindsay
  • Tuesday, September 6, 2016

The longest swim and a fire at the pool

Sunnyside Pool
My goal this summer was to swim for as long as my arms could carry me. It's not the easiest thing to carve out a full morning but I was inspired by listening to all the training stories of Olympic atheletes and I finally managed to find the time. I hit the start button on my phone and hopped into the pool. I figured I had at least two hours in me. Even though I usually do a half hour warm up, it took forever to hit 30 minutes, knowing that would be a only a quarter of my swim. My mind wasn't wandering the way it usually does, too keyed up on how much time had passed, or not passed. 

It was boring. Way more boring than I anticipated. And even though the day was a hot one, and the water was the perfect temp, I was cold (I'm always cold when I'm swimming these days!)

BUT I finally got into a rhythm about an hour in, and at an an hour, fifteen I wondered if I even had more than two hours in me. 

At an hour and a half, the lifeguards started blowing their whistles—a long clear-the-pool blast. They were shouting into their megaphones. Get out of the pool. Clear the pool. Everyone out. I was an hour and a half in. I wasn't ready to stop. My arms weren't the least bit tired. I had even overridden the boredom. But lifeguards were running down the deck, telling swimmers to get their things and leave through the gates. Don't change, they insisted. There's no time.

And then the wail of sirens started coming closer. Not one fire truck, not two, not even three. There were five firetrucks lined up on Lakeshore Blvd. by the time I got out, still dripping. 

There was a fire in the pool (well, an electrical fire in the boiler room).

No one was hurt, and the pool re-opened later that day (thanks for the update, Twitter!) and the morning felt like a strange dream. 

I wasn't tired, that afternoon, or the next day. My arms weren't sore, or my legs – something I find quite astounding.

I had thought about trying again and actually hitting the two hour mark, but there are other things to do, like read on pool decks and explore new pools before the summer is over and re-watch Penny Oleksiak's gold medal race, so I'm going to have to wait till next summer to see how long my arms can swim...

Oh, and to make it through a morning without having 487894 snacks the way I usually do, I downed this epic smoothie pre-swim: avocado, coconut cream, almond butter, chia seeds, flax seeds, raspberries, maple syrup and almond milk...mmmmmmmm!





  • Lindsay
  • Monday, August 22, 2016

Nightswimming

Extreme Heat Alert

Lindsay: For years I've wanted to take advantage of the Extreme Heat Alert late night swims, but for all sorts of reasons—cottage trips, family emergencies, friend emergencies—I've always managed to miss night swimming. Until last weekend. It was face-meltingly hot, and Twitter confirmed Sunnyside was open and I zipped down to the lake after the sun set.

(It was the first time I haven't had to remember to wear sunscreen to an outdoor dip!)


It was way more full than I expected, and the flood lights were so, so bright it felt like the middle of the day. There were kids playing Marco Polo in the shallow end and couples making out in the deep end, and because I'd been watching Olympics non-stop, I had to start with a few quick lengths (working on my flip turns because...PENNY OLEKSIAK-SPIRATION!)

It was the most glorious, most long-awaited swim. The water was cool, cold even, such relief from the 43 degree humidity. The clouds were too thick to see the Perseid meteor shower, but the moths were lit by the flood lights and looked like shooting stars as I floated in the deep end. (And I saved the day for a kid by moving a ginormous cicada off his towel).

And then, of course, I listened to REM's Nightswimming on loop until I fell asleep and had the most perfect turquoise dreams.

~

 Meanwhile on the north side of town... 


Rhya: I too was blasting Nightswimming through my headphones... because it's one of the top ten ultimate swim songs (note: need to make this list and post here!) It wasn't on repeat though, as I was also floating in Wheat Kings and other Tragically Hip faves in honour of their Toronto concerts that were happening this weekend. So I was pretty much drenched in nostalgia by the time I got to the pool. 

The change rooms were quiet. I moved through them fast and headed to the pool deck.


I decided to go for the spontaneous swim because night swimming is like the chlorine soaked unicorn of the Toronto summer! You just have to hit one up when you see that tweet announcing that pools will be open late due to an extreme heat warning.

The JJP was lit up and splashing! There was a real mix of people, from teens canon balling into the deep end, to parents with newborns taking turns floating in the shallow end. I was alone for my swim. I dove in and did some very relaxed lengths. There were two others like me. A woman with her swim cap perched high on her head and an older gentleman whose noggin never dipped under the water...not once. We loosely crowded together on the south side of the pool and did lazy laps, back and forth from the edge of the deep end to the edge of the shallow end.

I kept stopping to people watch. There were kids practicing handstands on the deck, lots of people  bobbing about chatting and laughing, and tons of fancy flips happening into the deep waters. 

At one point I was almost bowled over by two young boys locked in a very messy race of front crawl. Let's just say there were crazy arms and someone swallowed too much water, and just way too much splashing. It was a riot to be under the city sky, surrounded by life, floating and swimming through that magical night.

I'm glad I caught the unicorn this year!



  • Lindsay
  • Monday, August 15, 2016

My kindred spirit: Mark Tewksbury

mark tewksbury
Olympic gold medalist Mark Tewksbury first world-class athlete to be openly gay
Photo Credit: Swimming Canada

I don't usually get star-struck, though there have been three exceptions*: Steve Nash, Stringer Bell (I mean Idris Elba. For the love of god don't repeatedly call him String!) and Mark Tewksbury.

I was obsessed during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and Mark Tewksbury's gold medal race blew my 12-year-old mind. I could watch that clip over and over again and every time I will get goosebumps and every time I will get happy tears in my eyes. That start? Come on. And that huge smile, his disbelief and sheer joy, those fists in the air. I cut out every single newspaper article I could find about Mark Tewksbury and created quite a formidable scrapbook.

I fell in love with back stroke because of Mark Tewksbury. And the day he won, I also had a race (with my summer rec swim team, the Park Lawn Piranhas). And when I won that afternoon, I truly felt Mark Tewksbury and I were kindred spirits. 

Fast forward a lot of years. I was 19 and in dance school and horribly injured. I went to physio nearly every day, with the words "hip surgery" bandied about with alarming frequency. The only consolation about spending every day in physio was that it was next to a Starbucks and I would treat myself to a vanilla latte – a financial extravagance for a broke contemporary dance student – and sit on the top floor, by the window and try not to cry. In retrospect, it was one of the lowest places I have been.

One afternoon, a man walked in. And I knew him. At least I thought I knew him. It was Mark Tewksbury. And because when it is Steve Nash, Stringer Bell or Mark Tewksbury, I cannot contain myself, I literally ran over to him and everything tumbled out – the scrapbook, his race, his joy, the race I swam and won, that I've had truly believed we were kindred spirits, all of it. And that lovely, wonderful, gracious man smiled and listened and then asked if I wanted a hug.

Even thinking about it now brings tears to my eyes.

Turns out I didn't need surgery (helloooooo, second opinion!) and the following year I started swimming again and every time the lane was quiet enough, I'd do back crawl and think of meeting Mark Tewksbury in that Starbucks – his kindness, his empathy, his lack of judgment, his generosity.

He is truly an exceptional human being – an activist, an advocate, the biggest fan of Canadian athletes. (Have you seen this? Of course you have. I've been watching it multiple times a day. It's simply the best). 

I never want the Olympics to end for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I love seeing Mark Tewksbury on CBC these days. The world is a better place with him in it.



* all bets are off if I ever run into Kurt Browning...just saying...
  • Lindsay
  • Tuesday, August 9, 2016

The 3 best things about today's swim

Sunnyside Pool


1). Spying pool typography in the deep end (Thanks for the tip, Lo!)
2). The dragonflies criss-crossing overhead
3). The epic pool deck strut of a kiddo who passed her deep end test for the first time.

And best of all, all the junk and grief that's been floating around my brain disappeared for an hour, and when I got out, everything felt possible again.
  • Lindsay
  • Tuesday, July 19, 2016

The pool that holds my entire childhood

parklawn pool


The first pool I can remember is Park Lawn Pool – a small pool in Etobicoke, down the tobogganing hill from my mom's house. I spent entire summers in that pool – playing Marco Polo in the shallow end, diving for coins on the last day of swimming lessons, learning to stride jump, failing Red three times because I couldn't manage to spread peanut butter with my arms and ride a bike with my legs for a full minute. It was the first place I was allowed to bike to by myself (though I was terrified of the "steep" winding hill down from the baseball diamonds that in retrospect is not steep, nor is it winding). It is where I learned CPR and the Heimlich manoeuvre and where I had my first crushes: Jennifer of the reflective sunglasses and Rebecca of the straight teeth and Mark of the zinc stripe on his nose. 

I did all of my swimming lessons at Park Lawn, including my Bronze Medallion when I was too young to officially pass but oh-so-keen, my bathing suits frayed from being dragged across the deck after playing the choking victim in the deep end. I was on the recreational swim team (the Park Lawn Pirates and the Park Lawn Piranhas) and it was there that Peter Mansfield's mom said I had the most graceful backstroke. Because of all of those summers on the deck of Park Lawn Pool, I decided I wanted to be a lifeguard. And then I was a lifeguard on that deck...


And then last weekend, I took my 16-month-old to Park Lawn Pool. We past my childhood bully's childhood home, and my Grade 2 best friend's house on the drive over, and though I have never driven to that pool in my life, I was covered in goosebumps when we pulled into the parking lot. The change rooms smelled like they always have (damp and rubbery with a hint of mildew) and the sun was hot on the cement deck like it has been every year since I can remember.

I did not teach Jack how to tread water or how to do stride jump. I did not tell him how hard it is to keep your head tucked when you are learning how to dive, toes curled over the edge of the deep end, or how far away the shallow end is when you're tasked with doing butterfly for the first time in your life. Instead, I sat with him on the edge, holding back tears from how surreal it was to be sitting on the edge of the pool that held all of my childhood summers with my own baby.

He did figure out how to kick his legs that afternoon, and how to hold onto a flutter board. 

Next up, bubbles...
  • Lindsay
  • Thursday, July 14, 2016

The Lifeguard Clock (aka: swimming without a watch)

outdoor pools


I lose all sense of time when I'm swimming. As soon as I'm front crawling, it could be 5 minutes or 45, I really have no gauge – it's one of the reasons I love it so much. Outside of the pool, I am ruled by clocks and always know exactly what time it is and how long I've been doing whatever it is that I'm doing, but when I'm swimming that all disappears.

I used to have a waterproof watch, but I haven't been able to find it since I moved homes almost two years ago, and most of the time I don't miss it. I guess if I counted my lengths I'd know approximately how long it'd been, but I don't. I can't let my mind wander to all the strange and wonderful places it wanders to when I'm swimming if I'm trying to remember that I'm on length 8, or is it 10?

"Fancy" indoor pools have a racing clock, the red-blue-green-yellow second hand counting down when you have to push off the wall, even if you still haven't caught your breath, but most City of Toronto pools don't have them (or they do, but they broke years ago and are now art installations). Most indoor rec pools usually have a clock somewhere, perched above the pool, often times an hour off because no one re-set it when when Daylight Saving Time started or ended. Then, I count out my 30-minute warm up, 10 minutes of kicking, 5 more minutes of front crawl, 10 minutes of sprinting and 5 minute cool-down.

But outdoor pools rarely have a clock big enough to see from the deck. I would love do it not to matter, to be able to swim until I was tired, but I usually know I've got 45 minutes to an hour to swim.

My trick to make sure I don't entirely lose track of time, is the LZV-patented Lifeguard Clock: using the lifeguards' changeovers to mark the minutes. Guard changes at big pools usually happen every 15 minutes, 20 minutes at smaller pools. I try to remember one feature about a guard near the fast lane – that they're wearing a cowboy hat, or reflective sunglasses, or have a ponytail, or a long-sleeved shirt. When Cowboy hat is replaced with Ray Bans, I know it's been 15 minutes. When Ray Bans is replaced with Side Pony, it's been 30 minutes. It's not a perfect science, and sometimes guards look so similar it's hard to tell if there's been a guard change or not, but it keeps me from getting out of the pool after 10 minutes, or staying in for hours...
  • Lindsay
  • Monday, July 11, 2016

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