On Swimming

Body and Time

Dear Republic,

Our sports series continues with this deeply powerful personal essay about swimming. Send your pieces about sports, of whatever shape or size, to republic.of.letters.substack@gmail.com !

-ROL

ON SWIMMING

Brooklyn in July. Everywhere is hot. I fill a water bottle, put my swim suit on underneath a pair of shorts, throw my cap and goggles into a bag. I don’t bother packing a towel. It’s a forty minute walk from my apartment to Kosciuszko Pool. Some days, I will spend more time walking to and from this pool than I will swimming in it. I like the ritual. It reminds me of a pool in Seattle that I used to train in. Built in the middle of a park, on the shores of Puget Sound, it was a twenty-five minute walk from the nearest parking lot. I never got to practice on time.

My boyfriend bikes. He is more practical than I am. He tells me that he will meet me at the pool.

The lap section isn’t very crowded. A good day for breaststroke. I tell my boyfriend that breaststroke is not an easy stroke. The opposite halves of the body, the arms and the legs, must work together, without ever being exerted at the same time. Better to work on one, then the other. Even better, to practice first on dry land.

It’s nice though, being in the water together. I place my hands underneath his ankles, guiding his legs up towards the surface. I tell him to tilt his chest forward. His hips pop up. His arms straighten ahead. Streamline. We are ready to begin. Bend the knees, draw the feet in towards the hips. I put my palms to the soles of his feet and tell him to push against me as hard as he can.

***

August 2008. The first finals session of swimming at the Beijing Olympics. To celebrate, my mother makes zhajiangmian. We sit on the floor right in front of the TV, huddled over our noodles, waiting for Michael Phelps to appear. He will be swimming the first event of the night, the 400 meter Individual Medley. While we wait for the race to begin, the broadcast cuts from the still pool to the blue, amorphous exterior of the Water Cube. The building itself is mesmerizing, the image of water, in its elemental form, engulfing its artificial counterpart.

The swimmers walk out and head for the starting blocks. Eight laps, two of each stroke. Phelps has set the world record in the preliminary heats, so he claims the middle lane. His closest competitors, Lázló Cseh and Ryan Lochte, swim in the two lanes to his left. The race is close until the last 110 meters. Phelps manages to pull at the end of his most vulnerable leg, the breaststroke, and heads into the freestyle with a body length lead. World record. Gold medal number one. The beginning of Phelpsmania.

NBC has spent an enormous amount of money convincing the International Olympic Committee to hold the finals of all swimming events during the morning, instead of at night, just so this moment can air live, during prime-time for the American audiences twelve hours behind. No greater effort has ever been made to televise swimming in this country. My mother and I watch, then re-watch, every night.

Aside from Phelps, we don’t really care who wins each event. When we replay the broadcast, my mother tells me to pay more attention to technique. In the 200 meter butterfly, Phelps uses his second dolphin kick to plunge his chest deeper underwater than the other swimmers, maximizing his body’s undulation. In the 200 meter breaststroke, Rebecca Soni keeps her catch short, in front of her chin, minimizing upward movement of her chest and maintaining as much momentum from the previous stroke as possible.

In the 200 meter backstroke, I notice a swimmer in lane six whose hands enter and exit the water so gracefully they barely make a splash. His chest appears buoyed to the water’s surface. He keeps his head still for the entire race. No extra resistance. A perfect streamline.

In comparison, the other swimmers in the final look like they are fighting the water. Their hands slap the pool’s surface and their chests bob up and down with every kick.

Ryosuke Irie touches the wall in seventh. A year later, he will break the world record in this event.¹ He credits his backstroke technique to training with a water bottle balanced on his head.

***

Pacific Northwest Long Course Championships. The 200 meter Individual Medley. Four laps, one of every stroke. My coach tells me to conserve energy the first 100 meters. The strategy is to build momentum between each stroke. I am good at butterfly. I dread backstroke. The breaststroke and freestyle laps are where I might be able to win the race.

During warm-ups, I swim a couple of 50s breaststroke at 200 pace. The idea is to train this tempo into my muscle memory. No matter how much my body hurts after the first 100 meters, I must replicate this lap.

I say must. What I really mean is hope. There is no way to predict what might happen during a race. Legs can give out early. Shoulders can tense and shorten strokes. Every swimmer’s greatest fear is the moment the body fails and the rhythm is lost.

I know I’m safe once I’ve made it to the freestyle. Three dolphin kicks off the turn, two strokes before I breathe. A little life in my legs. I pick up my kick. No more pacing, it’s time to sprint.

The next thirty seconds are all pain. I trust my body. I am twelve years old. I have spent hundreds of hours training for this lap.

***

A couple weeks later, packing for a travel meet in California. My first period. I have no choice but to use a tampon. I will spend the majority of the next week in a swimsuit. I worry about streaks of red trailing me in the water. A few uneventful practices pass. The blood is surprisingly easy to deal with. My mother stuffs two boxes of tampons into my duffel bag and drops me off at the airport.

It’s the last and most important meet of the season. All week, we cut down our meters in practice in order to feel rested. I am supposed to feel the best I’ve ever felt. I feel like I am dragging my body through mud. My shoulders ache, my hips sink. I have never felt so low in the water. I gain time in every event.

***

Fall in New Haven. The professor stands at the front of the room explaining Heidegger’s distinction between objects that are “ready-to-hand” and objects that are “present-at-hand.”

He says a “ready-to-hand” object is something we might use reflexively, without much thought. Like a door knob or a hammer. When this “ready-at-hand” object breaks and ceases to perform its original function it becomes “present-at-hand.” Present in the sense that we have to take more notice of it, as in order to use it again, it must be figured out, fixed.

I hurry to the pool after class. Forty minutes left in lap swim. I warm up with twelve laps of freestyle, four laps of dolphin kick on my back. Today is butterfly. I swim four 50s where I practice building tempo. Six strokes down, eight or nine on the way back. Then six 25s all out, lots of rest.

After puberty, swimming becomes very difficult. The hips widen and gravity shifts. Strokes must change. Always something to fix.

I remember teammates waiting nervously at the edge of the pool deck for everyone to leave. I do the same. My coach says I’m welcome back if I change my mind. I never race again. It takes me months to bring myself to any pool, even casually. Every lap, a reminder of something lost. I am still waiting for it to come back.

Today. The last 25 butterfly. A brief glimpse. The body ready, everything fixed.

***

New Years on the beach in Santa Barbara. Celebrating with friends from college. We set up our tents in the campsites closest to the water. Mostly surfers this time of year. I see their wetsuits hanging up to dry on makeshift clotheslines and side mirrors. Like the surfers, I wake up early. I watch them as they paddle out into the ocean, specks bobbing up and down in the distance, waiting for the perfect wave.

I’ve never felt comfortable in the ocean. I am too used to swimming in pools. But I can hear my aunt’s voice. No lunch until you go in the water, she says. I have to go in. The first dip is the worst. I last a couple seconds. The next time is better. I go out far enough that I need to tread water. My body starts to get used to the cold. Five minutes turn into ten, then twenty. By the last morning, I’m able to hang with the surfers. I follow them out past the breaking waves. I’m not warm, but my body knows enough now not to panic. The salt water is nice. I dive under the swells. To count as swimming, the head must go underwater.

***

I put on my swimsuit and walk around the living room. I drink coffee, read, pay the electricity bills. I pet the cat. It’s the beginning of April. The pools won’t open until June. There will be no swimming today. It’s nice to imagine. The suit hugs my body in all the familiar places. I’ve worn the same model since I was twelve. Tight seams grip the skin just above my hips, narrow shoulder straps hold my chest firmly in place. A bit snug on dry land but perfect in the water.

It’s not a suit made for relaxing. I bring it with me everywhere. The rec center in Phoenix at sundown. The lap swim at 7AM in North Berkley. The 20 meter hotel pool in Cork. Always twelve laps of freestyle to start, then four laps kicking on my back. If I’m feeling good, I’ll repeat this a couple times before moving onto something more constructive. One arm butterfly, double kick breaststroke, catch-up freestyle.

Once in a while, backstroke. My head swivels too much. My hips sink. I rely on my arms, which move faster but catch less with every stroke. I feel like I’m fighting the water. Maybe this summer, I can improve. I will bring an extra water bottle to the pool.

***

Helen Teegan is a former competitive swimmer and swim instructor. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and swims at Kosciuszko Pool and Brighton Beach.

1. Irie initially broke the 200m backstroke world record in May 2009. But because he was swimming in an unapproved suit, FINA did not ratify his time. In August 2009, he swam under the world record again, this time in an approved suit, but was beaten in the race by Aaron Peirsol. Peirsol and Irie still hold the fastest two 200m backstroke times in history.