Trepidation

About a month ago I joined the local YMCA here to help me lose weight. It was a bonus that my company picks up half the monthly tab. But I really wanted to start swimming to get back into better health.

I'm a fairly large guy -- I think the doctors call it morbidly obese. Reading that definition of you in a doctor's referral letter to a specialist kind of makes you take note, but that's a different post. But, being a large guy, I am also terribly out of shape.

Strike one.

As I was saying, I'm a large guy. Some types of workouts cause me more pain than others. I also have a pain in the front of my shins that I always thought was just shin splints, but after seeing a podiatrist about it he called it something else. It's gotten less, but it's still hard to walk too fast, or even too far. I've got special orthotics to help me deal with it. But in my mind the problem is my legs are too big and it's forced me to change my gait.

Strike two.

Did I mention I'm asthmatic, too?

Strike three?

Not so fast there, cowboy. I may be asthmatic, but I can still exercise. I've worked with an allergist and gotten that part under control. So that's no excuse to not at least go for a walk, hit the treadmill, the elliptical or even a leisurely bike ride. I can do those things, slowly, not because of my asthma, but because I'm out of shape. I need to get back into shape. But how?

Enter swimming.

Swimming is an exercise that I LOVE to do. I am not going to break any Olympic records, but I know the strokes (except for the butterfly. That one's always eluded me!). But I can do the front and back crawls, I can sidestroke, I can breaststroke. So, I got the Y membership with the thought that I would swim a few laps over my lunch break.

I've gone for 3 weeks, now, 3 times a week. And I don't really look forward to going. Not because of the laps, themselves. No. I hate going because I fear sharing a lane.

There are only 4 lanes in the good swimming pool. The other one is more of a recreation, play pool. I hate, hate, HATE not knowing if there will be an open lane when I go. I've tried to tweak the times I go, trying to find the time the pool is the most open. Most of the time I'm lucky and get a lane to myself. I wasn't so luck on Monday. Last weekend must have been a really bad weekend for some people, because all the lanes were doubled up that day. So there must've been some serious partying going on over the weekend, with food and wine flowing non-stop.

Once I get in the pool, I'm just fine. But I dread it from the time I get in my car until the time I am actually in the pool to see how many lanes are open. I hate that feeling. It's hard enough for me to get to the gym, walking in looking the way I do. I feel everyone's eyes are on me, wondering why I'm going to the gym. It's OBVIOUS I don't spend much time in workout facilities, at least I haven't in the past. But I don't just walk in, I go into an area with a lot of bare skin showing. There's not much hiding I can do in the pool, or walking to the pool. It feels like a walk of shame. Each step in nothing but my swim trunks is a stark reminder of how far I have let myself go, how far I have left to go.

There are products out there, personal swim pools that create a current you can swim against. I would love to get one of those. I could swim laps in the privacy of my own home, get fit and in shape without anyone seeing the process. But it's not practical. Those things are upwards of $20k, and then I'd need to have an indoor shed built for it, too, since I live in the frozen tundra of the upper Midwest. That would add even more to the cost, money that we just don't have, money that should be spent more wisely than that.

Swimming is good for me. It's easy on my joints, builds aerobic capacity and strength at the same time, and I enjoy doing it. So, each M-W-F, I will suffer the trepidation of having to share a pool lane. It will make me a stronger person in the long run.