on swimming

When I was in high school, I was a diver. I'm not exactly sure what piqued my interest in diving, but I suspect it was gymnastics. I took gymnastics classes for a few years, and I was on my junior high school's gymnastics team, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue in high school (I did, but only in 9th grade). Plus, I had weak ankles and I wasn't very good. So, I decided to try diving. 

I wasn't a spectacular diver, but I could do it. I was an exhibition diver in the 9th grade, but after that, I dove mostly at the varsity level but sometimes at the junior varsity level. At the varsity level, I always placed last in swim meets, but as a JV diver, I think I did win a few times. 

I had a lot of fun, made good friends, and went to diving camp. I was a consistent diver, but I was accident prone. I hit the diving board a lot, and one time when I did a somersault off the side of the pool, I even managed to hit my head on the underside of the pool deck. Aside from some scrapes, I never injured myself. But I suspect that I did eventually grow tired of hitting the board, and it probably contributed to the end of my diving career. When I was a freshman in college at St. Mary's University, I dove for about a month. In practice one day, I was doing an inward somersault, and I kicked out too early and smacked the backs of my calves on the diving board. There was blood. I think I quit shortly thereafter. To be fair, at that point in time, I already knew I was going to be leaving St. Mary's after only a semester there, so I wasn't too committed to the diving team or the school itself. 

Upon telling people that I was a diver, I am guaranteed to get 2 questions, in the following order: 1) Did you dive off that really tall platform? and 2) Are you a swimmer?

The second question baffles me. After all, unless an athlete is on the track or cross country team, nobody asks her if she is a runner, even if her sport requires a degree of running around. Diving doesn't even require the ability to swim. All a diver has to do is push herself up from the bottom of the pool and dog paddle to the side.  

This isn't to say that I can't swim; it's just that I wasn't a swimmer. I took swimming lessons for a few years as a kid, so if I happened to fall into one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes, I wouldn't drown. I dreaded swimming. In fact, before I joined the diving team, it was apparently not uncommon for the divers to form a diver relay and compete in meets. I was relieved that this never occurred while I was on the team (that I could decline to participate never occurred to me).

I think you know where this is going.

To avoid turning a minor running injury into a major one, I took a month off after the OC Half. After doing nothing for a few weeks, I decided to take up swimming. I got a real swimming suit and goggles (and I have to say, swimming gear is a lot cheaper than running. For less than the cost of running shoes, I got a suit and goggles). I started taking swimming lessons at the gym a couple weeks ago, and I'm finding that I actually enjoy swimming. I've even voluntarily gone to the pool to swim laps.

If someone had told me that someday, I would be running and swimming- for fun- I never would have believed them.