Someones got to lead
Finding the service in going first
A year and a half ago I dove back into the pool following a twelve year absence. My formative years had been filled with swim meets, practices and awkward poolside team photos. Once my hips arrived in my mid-teens, I simply was no longer fast enough to be a real competitor and stopped practicing. I set swimming aside and only missed it occasionally, often when wafts of chlorine made their way down a hotel hallway on a work trip.
Following the birth of my son, my now preferred exercise of running felt cumbersome and hard with my changed body. Our fancy new gym had a pool (and excellent childcare!) and offered Intro to Masters and Masters classes. Masters is a nationwide organization that in a nutshell is swim team for adults. Despite being terribly intimidated by the standards for athletics in Boulder, I started attending the Intros classes and fell in love with swimming all over again.
As months passed, I became a regular in the pool and improved my pace enough that I decided that I would step up to the real Masters program.
Stepping in to my first class, I was terrified. Just lanes down from me were were household names in the triathlete community, past Olympians, and more six packs than a liquor store. Resisting the urge to run in the other direction I found the slowest lane and took my place in the rotation: dead last of the sixty people on deck.
The first few weeks were not pretty. I would have to sit out a 100 here or there because I had been lapped or was completely out of gas. Still, I kept suiting up and doing my best, and progressively I got better. About six months into attending Masters three times a week, my coach approached me and said, “You know Sarah Jane, it’s a lot later in the class before you fall behind everyone else now.” Though I continue to give her flack for the backhanded nature of the comment to this day, inside I was elated. I was improving and even she had noticed.
Fast forward to this past March, my flip-flops crunching snow as I walked to to the outdoor pool. I was now able to not just keep up with others in my lane, but often found myself held back by the folks in front of me. Still certain others viewed me as an interloper, I rarely tapped a foot (the universal swim signal for I’d like to go faster than you) and stepped ahead. One day after class the coach approached me and said, “When are you going to embrace that you’re faster than them, Sarah Jane?” Next class, I dove in first and while trembling a bit, spat out “I’d like to lead the lane today.”
In the months since, some new regulars have showed up to our lane. Some are faster, some are slower and often it just depends on the day where each of us falls. We are all capable, competent, intelligent adults, and yet every class often starts with the same dilemma: no one wants to lead the set.
The first few weeks this was happening, I played along. I would courteously suggest someone else go, all so no one thought I was getting too big an ego; or, gasp, worse I go and hold someone up five seconds for one 100. But I quickly grew sick of losing valuable lap time and started just announcing, “I’m starting the set. Help keep me humble and just tell me you need me to get the hell out of the way if you want to lead.” Our lane went from the last of the class to start to the first, and we’ve all clocked more training time for it.
There are days when I keep my spot in front the entire class. They are brutal and challenging as no matter where my lane mates may be, I’m driven to go faster by the thought someone could be close to my toes. Sometimes we get a few 100s in and I feel the tap and excitedly step aside. It’s 20% easier to swim in a draft, which gives you space to focus on proper form and timing. In fact, slipping in behind someone faster can actually improve your speed. First, second or last in a lane, I like to think I get the workout I need for the day and so do my lane mates.
A few weeks ago at a particularly full class, the lane was standing around debating who should start, which meant mostly people were stating that they did not want to start it off. As someone suggested we get the coach involved, I grew frustrated and jumped to the front of the lane. Someone said something to the effect of, “Oh, you’re just going to go?” Without thinking as I pushed off the wall I replied, “Yes. It’s ok. I want to. Someone’s got to start. Someone’s got to lead.”
