Growing up in California, I swam on a club team for several years, then took a long hiatus before returning to the sport in my late 30s. As I started swimming laps at the local gym, coaxing my dormant muscles to recall the strokes, I noticed that the paces I once held with ease felt impossible. With each subsequent year, I slid a bit further down the mountain peak, trying in vain to claw my way back up.
I’m turning 47 this week, and some days my body feels as though it’s floating through molasses. It must be hormones, or the stress of parenting two teenagers, one of whom recently started driving. Perhaps I need more sleep, better nutrition, or (gasp!) to lay off the caffeine.
When I tell my husband all of this, he reminds me it’s not a matter of biohacking my way to a solution. “You can’t expect to compete with your teenage self,” he says.
But I can’t shake the idea that I should be constantly improving, or at least holding steady. Getting slower means I’m getting older, which means at some point I might totter to a complete stop.
So I keep coming back to the water – partly with the delusional hope that I’ll wake up one day and feel like Michael Phelps, but more importantly because of the community I’ve found. Over the years, I drifted into a regular training routine with two women I met at the pool. We settled on Wednesday mornings as our time to swim together, often with a coach and occasionally on our own. Those swims have remained the anchor of my week, the box I must check, the commitment I will schedule everything else around.
For me, our sessions are a test of humility as well as cardiovascular endurance: Both of my swim partners are a few years older, and they easily outpace me. While one is an accomplished triathlete, the other competes in U.S. Masters Swimming events. The difference in our abilities sometimes feels as vast as a desert. But each week, I find myself back between those familiar black and yellow lane lines, knowing I’ll learn something new. I’m trying, grudgingly, to shift my focus and chase goals that have nothing to do with speed. Maybe it’s perfecting my kick to get more power, or controlling my breathing during a longer set.
If it’s someone’s birthday, my friends and I will share coffee and pastries after swimming, our hair damp and scented with the chlorine that never seems to wash out fully. Sometimes we’ll meet up for dinner. But the majority of our time together isn’t on land. It unfolds in moments snatched between laps, when we catch our breath and commiserate on the challenges of parenthood, or side-eye each other when our coach prescribes a ridiculous-sounding drill. “Swim 50 meters of freestyle, backwards,” he said once, demonstrating by waving his arms in the air. We proceeded as instructed, to the amusement of everyone on the pool deck.
When life feels wobbly and uncertain, our shared enthusiasm for swimming is the rock that stays firmly put. After having a bilateral mastectomy to treat breast cancer in 2022, I spent several weeks at home recovering. My swim friends sent meals, and one dropped by with a gift: a midnight blue training suit. She’d bought the same one for herself. “It’s our new team suit,” she said. With my incisions healing and my range of motion still restricted to what my surgical nurse referred to as Tyrannosaurus rex arms, I worried that swimming would never feel the same. My friend’s gesture was an unspoken promise: You’ll be back. We’ll wait for you.
Since then, the three of us have continued to wear matching suits, often prompting questions from other swimmers. “Cool suits! Uh, what team do you all swim for again?”
My swim friends pushed me to try things I found terrifying, from an open water race in Lake Michigan to my first swim meet in three decades. As I competed again after so many years, I saw flashes of the past and the girl I was. I remembered rising early on weekends to travel to competitions, hanging out with my teammates in the tents we pitched on the deck and nibbling Twizzlers between events.
I still wish my body moved like it did decades ago. But I’ve realized that achieving some arbitrary measure of performance was never the point of returning to the water. The joy is in showing up, encouraging each other, and hopefully sharing some laughs too. We are all on our own paths, hurtling through space, converging for just one hour each week. It’s a routine that feels sacred, and I will savor it for as long as I can.
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