How I Met My Serious Swimming

[Dooley67]

This is my true story of how I got started swimming seriously and how joining the forum supported my effort. I am using the term speedo in its generic sense.

I have been a speedo wearer since I was 16 or 17 when I began college. I needed to take swimming as a PE class and the school supplied us with speedo type suits that were a woolen blend (I already posted this part in another thread, but it bears repeating briefly to note the age when I began to think about wearing speedos), very uncomfortable, but they looked and felt really good when I wore them, especially because I weighed about 125 pounds with a completely flat stomach at the time and was in pretty decent shape from playing a lot of tennis and squash.

I decided that brief suits were for me and at the time, the mid 60's, lots of guys wore either briefs or spandex square cuts that were a little longer than today's square cuts. The first suit I bought was a green nylon Ocean brief with 4 or 5 inch sides. Then I bought a blue and red tight square cut and then a vertically blue and white striped lower cut nylon brief with about a 2 or 3" side seam. I spent a lot of time at the beach during the summers, wore those suits, and was very tan. I loved going to the beach because I could check out all the hot guys and the hot girls as well. Though I loved the beach and the pool, I was just an OK swimmer with very little endurance and probably poor technique.

Fast forward five years or so, I met my wife, we were married, and I was really happy to find out that she like the way I looked in speedos and encouraged me to wear them which I have continued to do over many years.

As what happens to most of us when we get older, I no longer weigh 125 pounds. About three years ago while vacationing in Hawaii, I bought several pairs of really colorful board shorts (I'm sorry but I really did), rationalizing that I was too old (64) to be wearing speedos. I never did like the board shorts because at 5'6", they were all too long for me and looked kind of dorky. It was about a year later when I decided that age was not the issue, my weight was, so I worked hard to lose the 15 pounds that I was overweight.

I had been a runner for about 25 years, then switched to walking which was easier on my knees. My wife had been after me to do more than just walk for exercise and to work on developing more strength in my upper body. When my sister joined in to double team me, I finally agreed and, along with my wife, joined our local Y in early June. I have begun a program of working the weight machines three times a week and have been slowly adding repetitions and weight.

After about a year of browsing the forum, I screwed up the courage to join as a member, never having been a member of any social media. I was really nervous about doing this, because if I was going to be honest in posting and responding to posts, although I am mostly straight, there is also a side to me that is attracted to men as well. My attraction has been pretty clear in some of my posts, and, interestingly, it has been very freeing for me.

So how does this relate to my starting to swim seriously? Well, I began swimming laps and the first time out could barely make a full lap without being exhausted. I was focused on the freestyle which has always been hard for me, and was very discouraged. The briefs that I was wearing didn't adapt well to lap swimming, mostly being too loose or producing too much drag. And here's how being a forum member helped; I sought advice about what suits would be good for lap swimming and guys like Turbofan, SwimTeamSpeedo, Byron, and shaulis suggested different brands - Nike and Turbo water polo suits, Sporti, Tyr. I've talked about the suits that I bought and liked, and in addition to the good performance of the suits, they make me feel so good when I wear them which is now six days a week. And I've developed a small collection of colorful suits. I feel that I have a real justifiable use for speedos now.

I've gotten some great advice and encouragement about how to approach the lap swimming from STS, a fellow Mainer, who we all know has been and still is a competitive swimmer and coach. My son, as a kid, a swimmer at the Y and then as a teen, at the high school level has also given me some good tips. I had tried lap swimming once about 3 years ago and gave up after one outing but I promised myself that I would stick with it this time. Because I've always been able to do the breast and back strokes pretty well, with some good advice, I decided to focus on these and work on the freestyle on alternate days with far less intensity so I was much less frustrated.

I set goals for myself - 1 lap without stopping, then 2 laps, then trying to do 10 laps total, resting when I needed to. Where am I now after 6 weeks? I've been able to do 18 laps (a half mile) without stopping; 25 laps with some rest, then 27, and once, 30 laps with multiple rests of 15 or 20 seconds. My long range goal is a mile which I really don't expect to do anytime soon. But I believe I will get there. Am I planning on doing Masters swimming? No, I just want to be a good solid endurance swimmer.

Lo and behold, I've lost a few more pounds, now 20 pounds lighter, and my 32 waist shorts and pants are too big for me and I've had to buy several pairs of size 30 waist shorts. I haven't been a size 30 waist for probably 25 years. I think I look good in a brief suit now and I truly feel that at almost 68, I've earned the right to wear speedos designed for lap swimming. So that's how I met my serious swimming; I know that without the guidance from some of the guys on the board, this would have been a much tougher task for me.