Date: Fri 24-Jan-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Quick Words:

Swim-Workout-Column

Full Text:

Swim Workout Column - Kim Harmon

Long is the way, and hard, and out of hell leads up to light.

B Y K IM J. H ARMON

I don't know where the idea came from. Probably the same hellish place where

all my ideas come from. But for some reason I figured that doing a workout

with the Newtown High School swim team - a light 3,000-yard workout - would be

a good idea.

It was.

And it wasn't.

It was because the reasoning itself was sound. No one quite understands what a

swimmer has to do to prepare himself or herself for the rigors of a long

season and lots of people have misguided opinions that swimmers have it easier

than other athletes.

And it wasn't . . . well, because it hurt.

It hurt bad. Man, I was sore all over.

And I didn't even finish the practice! Though, for a 35-year-old guy who is

about 12 pounds overweight and who only exercises when he is trying to twist

the top off the salsa jar, I think I did okay if you consider that I'm, at

this point, not taking the long nap at the bottom of the Otto Heise pool.

I don't know what the line might have been on this epic battle between me and

the pool, me and the rigors of the 3,000-yard workout, and I'm not sure how

far I was expected to make it. But, like the great sportscaster Warner Wolf

might say, if you bet on 600 yards . . . YOU LOST!

I knew right away that I had made a big mistake. Before I even got into the

pool. The push-ups and ab crunchers and push-ups and ab crunchers and push-ups

and ab crunchers. It didn't take me long - I think it was the second set of

push-ups - that I figured I could cheat a little bit . . . trailing behind the

guys counting ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR, not dropping myself all the way to the

floor, and sticking my butt up in the air a little too far.

But, man, if I hadn't started going to the gym a couple weeks ago, doing the

exercise bike and the sit up bench and the ab roller and the weight lifting,

then it could have gotten real ugly real early.

At least I had a fighting chance.

Until I swam the first 20 yards.

The workout started with coach Reiff shouting out for us to do a 2-2-5 . . .

200 of kicking only, 200 yards of pulling only, and 500 yards of both. I got

through the kicking (only by taking frequent breaks because it was 10 times

harder than going 20 minutes on the exercise bike) and the pulling (ditto) and

100 of the 500 yards of freestyle before coach Reiff - maybe for my own safety

- took me out of the slow lane and put me in with guys who could push me (or

save me when I started to drown, which was more likely).

Then he called for a reverse individual medley, meaning 25 yards of freestyle,

25 of breaststroke, 25 of backstroke, and 25 of butterfly. I don't know how to

do the butterfly, so I was granted the privilege of substituting freestyle for

the fly.

That was unnecessary, as it turned out. About 15 yards into the final leg of

my reverse individual medley I flat out gave up. Stopped dead in the water and

looked up at the coach and said I quit. Waddled to the side of the pool and

pulled myself up onto the deck like a beached whale.

I had had it.

The whole point of the exercise (torture?) was to get an idea of what these

swimmers had to do, what kind of people they had to be endure this kind of

punishment once and sometimes twice a day.

But 600 yards might not be enough to get all of that.

Although I will give it a shot.

I always knew that swimmers were a different breed. When I was a freshman in

high school, the swim coach - who was also my gym teacher - strongly suggested

that I go out for the team because I already knew the strokes and I could do

the turns. But when I realized that the team practices six days a week, twice

on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I also realized I simply didn't have the dedication

and commitment for that sort of thing.

I regretted it when I graduated from high school. I regretted it when I was in

college. And I regret it now.

It takes an uncommon person to become a swimmer. Be it basketball or football

or baseball, you get to practice skills and strategies, but in swimming it's

all about endurance and conditioning and one monotonous stroke after another.

The kind of commitment needed just to get out of bed on a freezing January

morning for a 5,000-yard workout is almost unfathomable to me and you must

have to be a little skewed, a little nuts, to want to do that every day.

So, my brief career as a swimmer was just about to end when coach Reiff called

over two of his divers, Alyssa Von Oy and Greg Simoneau, and gave me one last

chance to redeem myself.

But while diving is less strenuous on my body (and mind), it is no less

difficult.

Especially if you're afraid of killing yourself.

Just to learn the approach took me the remainder of the practice - and I

didn't even get it. The last step on the board, the one that was going to

propel me up in the air, was so darned close to the edge of the board that I

either paced it wrong or froze up altogether and invariably ended up tumbling

into the water one time after another.

Alyssa and Greg were patient and were pretty good teachers and also got a few

laughs. Which was okay, because, other than the one dive which I may have

scored 1«, 1« and 2 (on a degree of difficulty of 1.0), I must have looked

comical trying to do something which these two divers can do so gracefully.

I liked it, though. Challenging. Less mind-numbing than doing 1,000 yards of

freestyle. Trouble is, I gotta shake that fear that I would be jumping up in

the air and coming down on my head and turning the pool water a nice healthy

shade of red and gray.

Once the practice was over, Nick Perrone asked me, "So, I guess you have more

respect for swimmers now, huh?" It's not that I didn't have respect before,

but I never did realize the kind of desire needed for this line of work. I

told Nick and I think I told coach Reiff that I would work out and come back

at the end of the season and finish the workout and thinking about that now,

I'm not sure I have the intestinal fortitude to do it.

I wish I did.

I wish I had a guy like coach Reiff pushing me.

Then maybe I could do it.

But, until something like that happens, I think I'll stay with this writing

gig. It's safer. And if I have to do 3,000 yards of anything, I can just hop

in the car.