Another Lake Washington swim

On Friday I went swimming in warm, weedy but clear shallow water, getting in via a narrow old concrete ramp behind a willow tree. I swam and floated out to 6′ deep, played and relaxed, front-floated to look at the underwater scene and swam around a bit, then came back out after maybe ten minutes. Under water were some weedy plants and some green plants that looked a lot like ferns, growing in light-colored sand. I saw a few groups of three or four small fish among the plants.

I had got some thoughtful “relax and swim” tips the day before from a swimming teacher/coach I like, which I really appreciated, in a Facebook comment thread I participated in. I said I’m not ready to try swimming any distance beyond 100 yards or so. Coach: Distance swimming is about going along the shoreline so you can stop any time you want. (I had never thought of it that way. I have thought that to swim “from here to there” means “without putting your feet down.”)

I said I find it so daunting to look back and know I’ve got to get all the way back there where I started. I don’t think I’m totally tired out – it’s more mental. Coach: I often feel that way going out to a destination. It seems like it is taking forever to get there. Try setting your direction, then come back to the present moment. Bring your focus to each stroke, following your breath, slowing down when you have a hint of tired. Look toward your destination only to make sure you are on course (needed in open water swimming). Don’t look forward to judge how long. It is just one stroke at a time. Be curious with how each one feels. Let the destination come to you.

I said  I follow my breath but my breath gets anxious. Coach: It’s telling you to slow down.

I asked, if distance swimmers such as yourself swim along the shoreline so you can stop any time you want, as you mentioned earlier — do you stop? Coach: Do I stop? Yes and no. I do stop swimming one particular stroke and change to another. I stop and hold my float and look around, chat with my swim mates or just float for periods of time. In the same way, I stop at a switchback when hiking. I have attached my flip-flops to my buoy so I could walk back if I wanted to.

She said she doesn’t stop and put her feet down, because she doesn’t like to put her feet on the ground and would rather float. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. I can’t imagine being able to chat without putting my feet down. I can tread water, but gets my heart rate up, which affects my breathing, which makes me less relaxed, ie not relaxed at all.

Anyway, I thought about her tips during today’s mini-swim. I tried to follow my breath and “be curious” with how each stroke felt. What I noticed was that when I slowed down to do that, my legs sank all the way down, stopping me completely. But it felt good to relax.

When I’d first arrived at this grassy, secluded bit of shore, set my bag down and started preparing to swim, a woman with two big dogs materialized five feet from me. The dogs ran up and swirled around me until I said, do you mind, and she called the dogs.

The dogs ran into the water, then out, and swirled around me again, bumping me and leaning into me, and I said Do you mind! The dogs continued bumping and nosing me as I was getting my shoes off, as if they had no owner, and finally I yelled, loudly, “Get away!” She took the dogs in hand and moved fifty feet down the shore to a similar spot, where a man already had a dog in the water. Then I (and the dogs) swam in peace. I asked myself why I didn’t calmly say, as soon as the dogs first contacted me, could you please take them elsewhere for now? The answer is that I didn’t feel obliged to negotiate over contact from uncontrolled dogs any more than I’d be polite if a man ran up and started touching me.