Swimming, a prosaic description

Don't bother reading this: it's just the result of random neuron firings that happened today during swim practice.

Swim Practice
I am stripped naked except for a thin piece of cloth satisfying the barest requirements of decency and a pair of goggles over my eyes.

My skin is covered with a thin film of grime, partly the product of a hard day's work and partly the product of standing in the hot, steamy tunnels that are the New York City subway.

SPLASH! I hit the water and form my body into a ramrod-straight line as I plummet to the bottom of the pool, 12 feet below. My ears scream with the pressure, but I pay them no attention. My feet touch the bottom, my legs coil beneath me...and with a strong push, they uncoil. I rocket towards the surface, trailing bubbles. One strong pull with both arms and I erupt from the surface of the water, my body coming out of the water to my waist before I fall back in.

I am grinning. The grime on my skin is gone. It will be a purification process, and the first part has begun.

I grab the wall with my arm, coil my legs against the textured tiles, and watch the clock. The red hand swings around to the top: 60. In a single, lightning-fast motion, my hand flashes off the wall, behind my head, and meets its brother directly over my head and my legs uncoil. I explode off the wall, water roaring in my ears with its passage. One meter, two, three, four, five meters...all in less than a second. I break the surface and take a stroke.

The stroke is like a rocket blast. I lurch forward, slicing through water like a torpedo. Another stroke follows the first. And another. The distance drops by, two meters per second. In 15 seconds I am at the other end of the pool, and in an action that could only be conditioned reflex, my body curls up, my arms fold in and push me over, my legs swing over my head, and plant on the wall. I push off again. Every stroke pulling, pushing me closer to my goal.

My resting heart rate is about 45 beats per minute. But in the 30 seconds it takes me to cover the two lengths, it has already doubled its rate. In another 15 seconds it has tripled it. By the end of the first 100 meters my heart is already racing along at 160 beats per minute. The blood races through the huge arteries feeding my arms, through dilated arterioles in my muscles, giving them energy, oxygen, fuel. And yet I feel none of this.

I feel speed, the roar of water in my ears, its rush past my skin, the power in my arms and legs as they thrust me forward. I see the V-shaped wake fanning off my head when I turn to breathe and I know that I am flying. I am at home in the water, my primordial mother embracing me in her arms.

Push! Dolphin kicks travel down from my neck, through my body, and down my legs in peristaltic waves. Each one snakes me through the water until I break the surface... I come up like I mean to fly fully out of the water, both arms breaking the surface at once, my head rising above them as they swing around in front...and then I dive, only to rise out of the water again...and again...and again. The term "butterfly" doesn't describe this stroke as well as its shortened nickname, "The Fly." It's the only way to describe it. I reach the wall and in a fluid motion...

Push! I am on my back, arms pinwheeling, body rolling, knowing by count of strokes where I am in the pool. I am an arrow speeding toward a wall I cannot see and yet I know where it is. The flags flash above my head and I count, one, two, three, four, five...my body rolls, my arm flies over my body, and I curl up into a ball... flip...

Push! I am off the wall, but as my speed slackens I don't break the surface, I pull down with my arms as powerful muscles in my legs complete the motion and then I explode from the water. The breastroke is a study in power, and my best stroke. The hands never break the surface, so the challenge is to maintain a forward motion while pushing the water forward. My body undulates, compensating for this disadvantage, every stroke giving me the opportunity to draw a great breath.

And with a final reaching, stretching finish, my hands hit the wall, my legs curl beneath me, my hand flies behind my head and my legs uncoil...

Push! the freestyle is speed, my body is an arrow, my arms pull me forward, each stroke a grab at the water, so efficient that my hands exit the water ahead of where they entered. My body rolls as a unit, each arm reaching forward and launching me towards my goal...and in a final reach I roll up on my side and kick!

I am home. My heart races, my breath thunders in my chest, and I am cleansed.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella

A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

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