| Ocean swimming was never something I had | | | | After running into the reef a few times, I changed |
| considered despite having swum competitively in the | | | | my stroke to roll from left to right allowing me to |
| fourth grade and during my senior year as team | | | | see to my left as much as I saw when breathing on |
| captain for our high school swim team. | | | | my right. The increased rolling seemed to considerably |
| Truth be told, I never really enjoyed competitive | | | | cut down my drag and increase the glide I'd get with |
| swimming. As a fourth grader, I joined the YMCA | | | | each stroke. On the down leg, with the wind behind |
| swim team thinking it was some after-school | | | | be, my strokes could be long and slow while the |
| program devoid of all the basketball, football, and | | | | return leg required shorter and quicker strokes to |
| other team sports in which I possesed neither the | | | | push through the wind chop which I was now |
| interest nor the ability. Understandably, after a year | | | | swimming against. These varying conditions combined |
| of intense training for meets which I really preferred | | | | with my new "view" on both sides during my 2K |
| not to participate in the first place, I chose not to | | | | swims in the lagoon made for an interesting forty |
| continue after my first season. | | | | minutes which I would later work down to my |
| Growing up like many other island kids and | | | | under-thirty-minute goal! |
| progressing from bodyboarding and bodysurfing to | | | | Around the point when my times were in the |
| surfing made me quite proficient at swimming and it | | | | mid-thirties for 2K in the lagoon, I discovered the |
| was a natural for me to sign up when my high | | | | "high" that so many runners experience. Until that |
| school, during my senior year, re-instituted its swim | | | | time, I had never heard of such a condition for |
| team. For me and some of my surfing buddies it was | | | | swimmers. It came for me when I was encouraged |
| a shoe-in for a letter and the try-outs turned out to | | | | to swim the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, a 2.8-mile |
| be a piece of cake! As it turned out, I was assigned | | | | swim along Oahu's Waikiki shoreline. As a suggested |
| to swim the breaststroke (in my mind the ugliest | | | | practice for the event, a fellow swimmer suggested I |
| stroke of all) and the 200-meter individual medley, | | | | start swimming 4K at the lagoon, twice the yardage |
| both in which I bronze medaled but never really saw | | | | I had been swimming each day. |
| as enjoyable. Perhaps, as I look back on our | | | | To my surprise, doubling my yardage wasn't difficult |
| swimming days, it may have been because we never | | | | at all. Instead, what I discovered was somewhere in |
| used goggles! | | | | between the second and fourth kilometer was what |
| My senior year in high school went quickly and the | | | | I considered to be the swimmer's equivalent of a |
| whole prospect of swimming was something I gladly | | | | runner's high! I found that for a period of time after I |
| left behind without even the slightest feeling that | | | | had been swimming for awhile I would get a second |
| something I had done every day for an entire | | | | wind then enter a "zone" where my stroke seemed |
| season would be in any way missed. Yes, it was time | | | | almost mechanical and I felt neither fatigue nor the |
| to close the chapter of swimming in my life and | | | | usual longing to be done with my swim. Instead, I felt |
| replace it with more appealing activities like surfing, | | | | I could keep on swimming forever at what was |
| diving, and boating. | | | | about a three-quarter speed! For the first time in my |
| During my four years of college and the fifteen | | | | life, I truly enjoyed swimming. |
| years that would follow I grew impassioned with | | | | My new interest in distance swimming made it an |
| sailing and never had a second thought about | | | | activity I wanted to do every day. I found myself |
| swimming until after the end of a five-year | | | | going to pools and swimming laps non-stop for over |
| relationship. As is often the case for individuals after | | | | an hour straight and, within four months of returning |
| a major beak-up, I needed to do something different. | | | | to swimming, I entered my first rough-water swim |
| That's when swimming came back into my life. | | | | and soon after that clocked my first under-thirty |
| Over the years, I had gained some thirty-five pounds | | | | minutes at Ala Moana Lagoon. |
| beyond the one hundred and fifty with which I left | | | | After a couple of years of swimming regularly, I |
| high school not to mention the unhealthy cigarette | | | | seemed to get burned out and again let swimming |
| habit I had picked up along the way. Realizing I | | | | out of my life in favor of other activities. I returned |
| needed to regain something of my old lifestyle, I | | | | to swimming in my early forties, a stint that lasted |
| turned to the fitness regimen I knew best, swimming. | | | | for a year, and then returned again the year I turned |
| I went to the local pool and soon lost interest with | | | | fifty. On this last return I started swimming with |
| the never-ending laps, interrupting flip turns, and | | | | some masters swimmers who were in their sixties |
| overall boredom which I remembered so well from | | | | and winning their age group events. They encouraged |
| my training sessions back in high school. One day, I | | | | me to swim again in the Waikiki Rough-water Swim |
| went to Ala Moana Beach, a lagoon which was | | | | which I did, then the Double Rough-water which is |
| protected from the ocean swells by a large fringe | | | | simply the course of the former plus returning to the |
| reef and measured just over a kilometer from one | | | | starting point! |
| end of the park to the other. A group called the | | | | As seems to be my pattern, after the "Double," I |
| Waikiki Swim Club, a masters swim group, would | | | | had again reached a major goal and let my swimming |
| meet every Saturday morning with some members | | | | fall along the wayside. A few weeks ago, I hopped |
| swimming to the half-way mark and back for a | | | | on the scale and saw I was up to 200 pounds once |
| kilometer while others swam to the far marker and | | | | again, a weight I swore I'd never again reach. For |
| back for a two-kilometer (2K) swim. The best in the | | | | some reason, though, the idea of getting back into |
| group were doing the "2K" in under a half-hour, a | | | | swimming just seemed so difficult to pursue until my |
| feat which really impressed me! | | | | daughters, ages seven and eleven, said they'd go to |
| For some reason a sense of competitiveness I never | | | | the pool with me! |
| knew existed arose in me and I wanted to do the | | | | Over the last week, we've gone every day to the |
| 2K in under a half-hour! Soon I found myself going | | | | fifty-meter pool in our neighborhood recreation |
| every day to Ala Moana lagoon, before and after | | | | center. For now, the laps are arduous and the |
| work, and also during the weekends. On some | | | | thought of once again experiencing a "swimmers |
| evenings, I would be swimming in darkness with only | | | | high" seems far-fetched if not impossible. But as I roll |
| the lighted elevator shaft of one of the Waikiki | | | | from side to side and see one daughter swimming |
| hotels to guide me back to my starting point. | | | | her first real laps then rolling to the other side to see |
| It was during these long laps at the Ala Moana Beach | | | | the younger kicking on her board with an expression |
| lagoon that I discovered the "zen" of ocean | | | | of outright glee, I can't help but feel I'm "back in the |
| swimming. Up until this point, all of my swimming | | | | zone" and, once again, swimming is a part of my life. |
| experience had been limited to either anaerobic | | | | The author, Richard Young, is the creator of |
| sprints or longer gut wrenching power swims where | | | | hawaiibeachcombers.com, a website about Hawaii |
| all you could think about was the finish and your | | | | beaches presented through his favorite sports like |
| coresponding time. Here, with ocean swimming, in | | | | fishing, kayaking, bodysurfing, bodyboarding, and |
| absence of lane lines, markers and other swimmers | | | | windsurfing. He has participated in a number of ocean |
| thrashing about I was on the verge of a kind of | | | | swimming events which include the Waikiki |
| swimming where you could truly experience the | | | | Roughwater Swim, The Maui Channel Relay, and the |
| environment of which you were a part. It was a kind | | | | Waikiki Double Roughwater Swim. His current passion |
| of swimming in which I would find one could actually | | | | is kayak fishing and is among the recreational |
| enter a "zone" similar to that experienced by distance | | | | activities presented in his website. |
| runners. | | | | |