New Beginnings, Old Values

I had an interesting and encouraging chat with the most helpful and pleasant Paul Douglas Smith, who has been the manager of the pool since the take over by Freedom Leisure and the leisure centre in Littlehampton, that has been our home pool for the last twenty seven years.

It was there, all those years ago when after a lot of chatter and a little bit of nostalgic boasting over a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits in our kitchen, with a very young man who had not long finished his schooling as a boarder at Clifton and Marlborough that the first suggestion of going for a swim came up. James Clarke was the friend and he and Steve were talking about their respective swimming successes in their teens. James had been captain of everything at school having a talent for all sorts of sports.

They spoke of how fast they were over 100 yards and metres when they were at their best. James was obviously closer to his successful sporting days than was Steve being older by twenty years. The feeling of rising water based warfare grew and in the end it was decided to test themselves in the pool at Littlehampton one morning. I went along too just for a swim which in my case would be breast stroke and back stroke. The two chaps had a sound warm up swim first and then there followed a swim set during which both found that they had gone off the boil just a bit, best times fading in the mist of distant memory.

Regular visits followed with the aim of trying to regain some once held speed. I swam quietly along in another lane. Steve appointed himself coach between the two due to his age and his past study of swim mechanics.

The sporting chats continued during work and leisure hours, James worked with us for a while. He was also a useful runner at school and offered to take Steve out for a run some time if he fancied that. He took up the offer and having bought a new pair of trainers they set off from our house at the bottom of the hill in Angmering for a jog around a three mile block. They got as far as the post office,  half a mile up the road when Steve collapsed in a heap on the ground after trying to keep up with a youth half his age.

When he got indoors having walked back to the house, I laughed and told him it was all he could have expected going out with somebody who ran regularly. I said that if he wanted to try a bit of running that I would try too and that would take away the pressure of trying to keep up with a young man, I would be the one having to keep up with him instead. I suggested that we start with a very short run and then a short walk to recover. That worked better. I had quite strong legs from years and years of dancing but running was something I had not done except to catch a bus.

That was how a little fitness came into our lives so long after either of us have done anything of the sort for a very long time. It was a twenty year lay off for Steve and a thirty year lay off for me since we were both very fit when we were young. Steve swam and ran and worked out in the gym in his youth and I was always a dancer.

We joined a gym. We went on a diet. Slowly but surely we got much fitter.

One Saturday afternoon, James came back from a day out in Brighton with a copy of 220 Triathlon Magazine under his arm. He read aloud a few of the articles contained on the glossy sheets and we were all doomed. There was a list of events in the back of the magazine. Steve entered James for a triathlon in Southwater which was about twenty miles away. Steve coached James and we both went to watch and cheer him on.

Later that summer Steve entered his first event. We all had bikes by then but only cheap ones. However, our cards were marked. I had to learn to do front crawl. I could swim of course and did breathe into the water doing my breast stroke so I did not have that problem which is a major barrier to some beginners. 

I started my newest stroke at the end of that September and was doing a fairly presentable nonstop mile by mid December. My first event was the Human Race Damp Dash swim run in Kingston-Upon-Thames early the next year. There was six inches snow on the ground. 800metres swim followed by 10km run. I was the only lady over fifty and so got a prize for my efforts.

 

The rest is history as they say.

This mornings Lane 1 swim set is below. The set my friend Bekka and I did was a similar but shorter set with much easier swim rest times.

Lane 1
Distance	Clock	Swim Rest
400	60	6.30
200	30	3.10
200	40	3.30
50	10	1.30
50	40	1.30
200	10	3.10
200	20	3.20
50	40	1.30
50	10	1.30
200	40	3.10
200	50	3.20
50	10	1.30
50	40	1.30
200	10	3.20
50	30	1.30
50	60	1.30
200	30	3.10
200	40	3.20
50	60	1.30
50	30	1.30
2700 total