The last couple of times I’ve been swimming, I’ve had my oldest and youngest daughters tag along.  The oldest, because the youngest won’t sleep all the way through like she used to.

I had hoped in the back of my mind that it would make my oldest want to get in the water again.  After all, she’d put in years swimming on  a team, and I thought somewhere deep inside, she missed it.

I was right.  After watching me swim a couple times, she was itching to get back in the pool.  So this morning, we left the baby home with her big brother, and we two went swimming.

Now you know from last week, I can’t help but race the person in the lane next to me—unless it’s my daughter.  Oh my goodness, she swims so fast.  At one point, during my first IM, she beat me getting down the pool on a kickboard(!) versus my butterfly, my fastest stroke!  My times were slower today, too.  My first IM clocked in at 2:50.30, and my second one at 2:57.20.  I did notice that I’ve managed to shave one stroke off my backstroke, meaning, it used to take me 18 strokes to get to the flags, and now I can get it done in 17, so I should see better times soon I hope.

My daughter borrowed my watch to time herself swimming a 25 free.  She swam it in 17.68, which is faster than her old time of 18 something.  I don’t expect her to get back into competition anytime soon (I wish), but she is interested in lifeguarding, so that’s good.  She could swim the 500 yards necessary for lifeguard training in her sleep.

In the meantime, I’m working on my 10,000 hours.  That’s the time Malcolm Gladwell calculates it takes to master something.  At the rate I’m going, it’ll be a while.

But then I think about the older people going back and forth in the pool.  Most of them look like they’ve been swimming their whole lives.  They have the whole bouyancy thing down.  They don’t have problems with breathing, and their stroke looks good.

I don’t think I’ll run out of time.  And I’m sure having fun along the way.