Swimming is hard.

I went swimming today for two hours! Yep, two hours! It was fun but hard. I plan on continuing because I know it's got to be good for me, most things that are hard are good for you, right? I am taking a swim lesson at the Y where I work. Yes, I teach swimming but I teach it to little, little kids, babies practically. Some of my students are in fact babies so my main objective is getting them used to the water and teaching them not to drown. My boss recommended that the new swim instructors take lessons to refresh our swim skills and help us see how it is for our students to learn. I'm liking it thus far. 

When I was a pre-teen/teen, I took swimming lessons. I remember riding my bike (no helmet, no pads, we didn't know about safety back in the day) to the LPRA before it officially opened to take them. Just so you know, LPRA stands for Levittown Public Recreation Association, we had some good times at that pool, good times... Anyway, I took a lot of lessons there, diving, swimming, all sorts of stuff. I was pretty good. I also took lessons in Jr. High because our school had a pool. Do they still do that today? I remember loving the swim lesson, especially when we had free swim but hating the fact that we only had a few minutes to get dressed, dry our hair and reapply our Cover Girl blue eyeshadow and Wet 'n Wild lip gloss. Not to mention getting that pesky "The Clicker" butane curling iron heated up to "re-feather" our hair. I know I'm digressing but what I'm trying to say is that I was a pretty decent swimmer, or so I thought. 

Cut to today, we're working on the backstroke. Evidently, the swim instructors at the LPRA and at the Neshaminy public schools didn't know how to do the backstroke because I realized I never learned it. Sure, we did the elementary back stroke where you swim on your back like a frog but we never did THE Backstroke where you actually swim and do strokes while on your back. I had issues. I kept getting water up my nose when my arm came up and then I would choke and have to stop for a second or two, it was not a pretty sight, not pretty at all. Apparently, you have to rotate your body, flip your hand, kick your legs and move your arms in sync while not inhaling the water that washes up over you. I need a lot of practice.

After my class, I went up to "the big pool" and swam the length of the pool trying out my new backstroke "skills" as well as some freestyle we worked on last week. When I got tired I just did some Good Old-Fashioned Kicking with the kickboard. The pool is 25 yards in length and a mile is 1760 yards so I would have to do 70ish lengths to do a mile. I didn't come close to that but I bet I did somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 a mile, not too bad for my first try I think. Next time I'll count for sure. I like swimming because while I was doing it, my muscles didn't hurt and I felt really limber. I'm a little sore now though but I'm sure I'll get better as I do it more frequently, it's nice to add something new to my workout repertoire . 

Ok, I'm more than a "little sore". Where's the Advil?