I dusted the wetsuit off today for a dunk in a lake ahead of Outlaw Half. Three laps of the Six Hills lake at RaceHub in Nottingham was on the training schedule. It wasn’t the warmest swim I’ve ever had but it definitely wasn’t the coldest. At 14 degrees I only had temporary ice cream head this time. It was actually nice to get out in open water again. Made a change from going up and down a swimming pool, and it’s a great venue.
Swimming is the first sport I really got involved with. My parents wanted me to be able to swim from an early age, so my brother and I were enrolled in swimming lessons from the age of four. I think this was something that they hadn’t had the opportunity to have when they were growing up. I know my Dad learnt to swim in a small lake near where he grew up in Canwell; a hamlet in Staffordshire. He told us about going there with friends during the summer and getting in to trouble with my grandparents for turning up to dinner late and soaking. On holidays he was always going for an extended swim whenever we went to the seaside. He would swim out to a buoy or other landmark, mainly doing breaststroke and we would watch on from the beach.
It has to be said that I wasn’t particularly a natural in the water when I first started. I was pretty nervous and didn’t cope very well with the cold. I had to be coaxed to venture further out than the shallow end by our swimming coach at weekly lessons in the swimming baths closest to where we lived in Stonnall. She was pretty strict though, so I was encouraged to overcome whatever reservations I had by ‘getting on with it’.
Fear of deep water continued for a while. I would often swim right next to the wall to ensure I could grab on if I felt the need to. Having helped my daughters learn to swim, I understand that this is a more than normal part of learning to swim. One friend of the family was a swimming coach at our local club in Lichfield and he was particularly keen to get me to overcome my fear. He came up with various tactics to get me to dive in at the deep end, from boosting my confidence with positive words to promising me a Mars bar if I took the plunge. This continued for a few weeks until he ran out of patience and threw me in! I’m not sure this is in the handbook for developing swimming confidence, but it seemed to work in my case. I think I sank down in surprise before bobbing up and grinning like an idiot. Mars bar won.
My first proper swimming club was in Cannock, which used a 33 1/3 metre pool which, for a 7 year old was a pretty daunting distance. The pool wasn’t the warmest so getting going was pretty important. I started to go regularly and soon got used to being part of a club environment and definitely felt at home there. For reasons I can’t remember we made the transition to Lichfield swimming club after maybe a year.
Lichfield swimming club soon became my primary social environment as I started to make friends. From starting with widths and then progressing to swimming lengths I soon moved in to the main swimming sessions, thanks mainly to a number of great coaches and the head coach. She was also from the ‘school of strict’ but also had a great manner for enabling children to progress. Everyone had respect for her. She had a good mix of fun and training etiquette. She also knew how to get your attention if she needed to. It wasn’t a good idea to get on the wrong side of her, but I liked her a lot.
After a while I was invited to take part in my first swimming gala, which was quite a big deal at the time. I think my brother, Dave, had taken part in quite a few already so this wasn’t a new thing for the family but was big for me. The gala was in Mold, near Chester, so it was a proper journey for an away meet (something I became more than accustomed to most Saturdays).
My first experience of competitive swimming was as part of a relay. I had been picked to swim backstroke in a medley, which meant I would be the first to go. All started well until I suddenly became very aware that I was in a big pool I wasn’t familiar with, being watched by a lot of people I didn’t know. Panic soon set in and I ‘got the fear’. Feeling completely out of my depth, I grabbed hold of the lane rope and started crying my eyes out. My coach came to the rescue with an extendable pole that I could grab on to, and I was hoiked out of the pool. My mum’s pride in seeing her youngest son compete for the first time soon turned to acute embarrassment as all the other parents around her started exclaiming and saying how awful it was that such a young child had been put in that position. I think my mother did her best to shrink in to her seat and hide. I disappeared in to the changing rooms feeling mortally embarrassed that I had let everyone down. My coach of course consoled me and told me it was ok and everything would be fine next time.
I’m sure that experience was some kind of defining moment for me. There was no way I was going to let that happen again, and I’m pretty sure my mum wanted to avoid it too. After that I became a regular competitive club swimmer.