The "Chuck Norris" of Swimming

Something very cool happened to me tonight, my young friends at the pool gave me a new nickname and a new shirt.

The Chuck Norris of Swimming

I'm all kinds of proud.

My swimming career began when I was 6, my mom took me to the pool for some lessons, I had a fascination for water and she was worried about me drowning.  

The pool we went to had a swim team, I really wanted to be on the team, I begged my mom to let me try out, I overheard her speaking with the coach one day, she asked what it would take to get me on the team, the coach told my mom that I really wasn't cut out for swimming, he suggested that I try something else.  Well, a couple of years later I'm pretty sure I'd proved the coach wrong.

I swam from the age of 6 up to to the age of 12.  Swimming practice two hours a day 5 days a week year round tends to burn a little guy out, even on something he loves.

I picked up swimming again when I was about 18, I swam for a few months to get myself in shape for a triathlon.  After the race, I stopped.

Two years ago I decided to pick it up again, I'm really enjoying my time at the pool, it's been a lot of hard work, but it's been paying off as well.  Not only is it good exercise, but swimming on  a team adds an element of fellowship that was lacking in my exercise life.  It's hard to stay motivated 

when you're all by yourself.  That isn't a problem when there are others around with similar goals.  

I swam my first race since making my comeback a few months ago, it was an open water race, the swimming leg of a triathlon relay.  The course was about 900 yards long, there were 364 swimmers ranging in age from 14 to 75.  My time was fourth best overall.  with less than three seconds seperating 2nd, 3rd and 4th.  The overall winner was only twenty seconds faster than me.  

Not bad for an aging grandfather with asthma and a bad heart, eh?

"Chuck Norris" can hardly wait for his next race.