Life without a buoy

Posted by Amy Baranski

Yesterday I took a nooner at Medgar Evers and jumped into the Aqua Jog class. My headband fell off immediately.

Equally stressed about my hair getting in my face during class and littering in the pool I urgently dove down (with a flotation belt harnessed around my torso), opened my eyes in the chlorinated water and blindly grasped for my head band.

I actually got it.

When I bobbed to the surface a few wrinkled faces looked concernedly at me. I almost said, "I'm OK," but sloughed it off and faced the instructor.

I saw another pregnant lady in class! 

But instead of introducing myself like a normal person I just kept glancing over at her during class to exchange a kind of knowing look. I can be such a nerd. She seemed my age, and appeared to be in her third trimester. Introducing myself after class in the shower just seemed awkward, so I pulled a Seattle and didn't say anything.

The teacher made us work hard.

Should I be so surprised? I'm at the pool to improve my cardiovascular strength and endurance during this pregnancy, but man, aqua jog sprinting pumps your heart like mad and makes you feel like an insane doggy-paddler. Except you're not doggy-paddling your moving your legs in a jogging motion.

The woman next to me turned and muttered "this is completely futile." It sort of felt that way, but then I realized we made it halfway through the deep end. The instructor gave us ten seconds to rest, then made us turn around and sprint again.

Aqua jog may confuse lap swimmers.

As we sprinted toward the deep end a very muscular lap swimmer rested between lamps and watched our class. I flashed him the biggest smile I could that was supposed to read: I know I look like I'm in aqua jog but I could totally lap swim. I told my blog readers I would and I'm going to do it. This is just my warm up. He looked through me. Puzzled.

I've never had a leg cramp before.

At the end of class I unbuckled my belt and ditched my weights. After two pridefully earnest breast-strokes to the middle of the pool my right calf spontaneously contracted in a painful leg cramp. I cried out. No one heard me. I kicked and pulled water with my left side and sidestroked my right arm to the edge of the pool. I tried not to move my right leg. It throbbed.

In my daze I pulled a Costanza and cut in front of a senior lady to climb the ladder out the pool. The pressure of my foot against the steps provided immediate relief. For a split second during the leg cramp I reached into the water to touch my muscle. It felt rock hard and I thought: damn that's a sexy leg. How can I be so vain during times of distress?

I was on my own. 

When the belt came off I immediately sensed the distance to the pool floor seven feet below. It was just me--two arms and two legs kicking and pulling to stay alive.

It hit me almost as suddenly as the leg cramp: our own resilience and buoyancy is strengthened in unexpected ways at unpredictable times.

Giving birth this year will bring about one of the greatest responsibilities of my life--keeping someone else afloat and teaching them how to swim and cope with the unexpected seizures of life that bring us to our knees sometimes. With the echo of my leg cramp still attached to my calf I keep telling myself, no matter what happens during the next several months, or the months after that: just float.

Into the Deep

Posted by Amy Baranski

***Update: read Out of the Deep for a summary of my first lap swim!***

Since there's no water aerobics class offered on Fridays at my local pool I considered trying lap swim this past week.

Lap swim intimidates me. 

It makes me think of really strong and long people with amazing bodies (not just to look at but in the cardiovascular sense).

Swimming seems easier to me now that I'm older, but I'll never forget the Herculean effort it took during middle school swim class to finish laps. Maybe I was doing it wrong? Or maybe the other students were counting their laps incorrectly, which I repeated to myself in class often enough to remember that mantra 20 years later. Just thinking about lap swim takes me out of my comfort zone.

That's exactly why I'm going to try it.

I skipped the pool on Friday, but on Saturday I bused there for the 10:00 a.m. water exercise class. I showed up early. So early that I got to take a snapshot of the locker room without looking like a total creep. It was empty.

Obligatory locker room shot.

The Saturday morning class is not Hydrofit nor Aqua Jog. It takes place in the shallow end and constitutes a lot of undignified jumping up and down. You have moderate impact with the bottom of the pool. If you don't feel it at the time you certainly do the next day. It was an interesting class with a 50-65+ year-old set. But I did not like the jumping up and down so much; it did not feel so great on my belly.

The entire time I kept staring at the lap swimmers, like they were the cool seniors while I was just starting freshman year.

They were at the other end of the pool and my whole water aerobics class experience morphed into this mental obsession, needing to know if you had to be able to execute a flip turn in order to swim in the lanes. I saw many of the swimmers somersaulting underwater and emerging towards the opposite end of the pool from whence they came. I saw several lanes designated by the words fast, medium, easy, very easy. I was relieved to see the last label, but when I studied that lane it did not look very easy. I have no idea if I'll be able to make it one length of the pool and back, but I really want to try. I actually only want to try in a completely private setting so no one can see me.

It would be OK if a lifeguard were on duty. 

Other than that I'd prefer no one with better athletic ability to be around. Even though those are the exact people you want in the pool with you. It's silly but it makes me uncomfortable to even think about it. So I'm going to do it. There's even a session tomorrow morning at 6:30...

Aqua Jog at Medgar Evers

Posted by Amy Baranski

Yesterday evening after speed cleaning the dishes I ran out the door and made haste for the #48 bus. Point of destination: Medgar Evars pool. Sadly, in the 12 years I've lived in Seattle I'd never been to Medgar Evars. Prior to this month, I'd never dipped my toe in any public pools around town. Lake Washington is my better known summer swimming hole. But the pools! I've underused this public resource for over a decade now. For shame.

I missed my bus.

Maybe it's the people I've associated with, who prefer natural swimming holes, or maybe I never asked the right question to the right person. But typically it's been easier to find sun worshipers in Seattle rather than swimmers. I can't ever guess why. I'm more the latter. I love the heat of the sun, but I'm not a fan of ultra violet rays. I'd rather be in the water than on land. My favorite all time place to swim is in the ocean. Wow I love the ocean. It's buoyant and there live wild creatures!

Fortunately another #48 came barreling down 23rd Avenue. I jumped on.

Most of the public swimming pools look funny from the outside. They are industrial and public and remind me of the Soviet construction we saw prevalent in Cuba during a trip there with my husband in 2008. Medgar Evars pool is most peculiar looking. Cemented and angularly institutional it isn't the height of welcoming save the murals depicting its civil rights era namesake on the building's cold exterior.

I went in.

The pool was hopping with teenagers. Now that I'm pregnant teenagers don't scare me anymore. Not that they scared me, but now I see them better, or maybe they see me better. Members of the Cascade Swim team crawled and backstroked in the pool, parents sat in the bleachers. A good looking young swim instructor worked with little kids in the shallow end. I made my way into the women's locker room.

Medgar Evers feels bigger than the Green Lake pool, although it probably isn't. It reminds me of the pool I swam in as a child. Within walking distance of my house I'd head there after dinner in the evenings for the public swim and practice and practice. For me, swimming came with work.

I was early.

So I got dressed in my suit and tried to take a stealthy picture of myself in the locker room. Major fail. I showered (a requirement before getting in the pool) and eventually headed to the deep end. Other aqua joggers gathered. No seniors. Just thirty-somethings, forty-somethings, and fifty-somethings. At least 20 people in total. We did not conduct the course in a circle as I experienced at Green Lake. Instead we went from one end of the pool the other. The workout differed too.

I was the only pregnant one.

While the other students worked on abdominal crunches in the second part of class the teacher made me jog, then run, then cross country ski. A woman looked at me, "I think you're getting the shorter end of the stick here." I smiled. This time my belt felt different, perhaps I had the wrong size. The result felt like treading water for 45 minutes. After class I chatted with the instructor. "I'm a horrible teacher. They make me do this class because I've been here for three years. I tell them stick me in the water with kids I'll do anything. I hate teaching adults."

I thought he was perfect.

There's an upcoming Aqua Jog class at Medgar Evers on Wednesday at 6:00 pm. See you there?