jesse_the_k | Back to the pool

It’s been fifty-nine weeks and a day since I last swam. My pool has created elaborate routines to minimize infection: one-person per lane in 45 minutes blocks; entry at staggered 10-minutes intervals to minimize shared time in locker room. The pool is part of a cardiac rehab clinic, so they've been open to patients but not exercisers.

It’s delicious to be in the water, and I do remember my routines and my strokes.

Last March I’d achieved a 27-minute swim thrice weekly. I’m too impatient to limit myself as much as I should. I did 16 minutes today and then spent four hours just staring straight ahead. More, again on Thursday and Sunday!

How has your body program changed? Any recent signs of improving access?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sasha_feather

Yay for swimming!

I slept most of the day yesterday and today, so that's where I'm at, haha.

From:

jesse_the_k

Sleep is also good for you.

From:

sonia

Yay, back in the water! I've had that experience where doing something after a year just feels... ordinary. Like being in a car was, after more than a year.

Some people around the country are starting to dance indoors in groups again, but I'm not ready to try that.

From:

jesse_the_k

Yes, dance and choral music are, sadly, quite risky. Would you feel safe with outside dancing, if you could find a portable floor?

From:

sonia

Well... the thing with dancing in a circle is that you're dancing through everyone's exhaled air. We're having another surge, so it feels like an unnecessary risk. Giving people bodywork in person (with masks) feels like enough of that sort of risk for now.

From:

ng_moonmoth

I'm ramping my bike rides back up. About to get to my third level-up, which is a still pedestrian (by my standards) 6+ miles (about half what I want to be doing) in under 30 minutes (25 is my target for this distance). This is on city streets with stoplights, which introduce a certain amount of variance I have only some control over.

Glad to hear you're all wet, in the best possible way.

From:

jesse_the_k

At least in our town, last year the auto traffic was way down, making cycling easier and less stressful. That happy change is no longer.

Are you a commuter cyclist?

From:

ng_moonmoth

I have been, during Daylight Savings Time hours, which conveniently cover the dry season and times of enough light. I don't really care to mix it up after dark with the local auto commuters. All distances one-way.

I've had a few jobs that were within 5 to 8 miles, where I customarily rode unless I needed to drive somewhere after work. A couple in the 13-15 mile range where I would stick my bike in the trunk, and ride home one day and back the next if I was able to wrap up the day soon enough. That would spread the load and reduce time pressure. One startup effort where the ride was a couple of miles at the home end to a commuter train, and then a fairly steep few miles to the founders' apartment in San Francisco. That end transitioned to a half-mile jaunt after funding.

Local traffic is starting to increase a bit. My training rides have bike lanes on the streets that have more than residential traffic, so it isn't at all nasty.

Edited (local traffic info) Date: 2021-05-06 01:43 am (UTC)

From:

jesse_the_k

Ahhhhh!

Bike commuting can be such a joy -- on roads that are correctly designed, it's a mindfulness activity. (On the rest of the roads it can feel like one is the prey in a big game hunt.)

I spent a couple years working with our city's new engineer, who is a cyclist and is bringing some SF style to our streets as well.

From:

ng_moonmoth

Yeah, even when I'm on a street with a bike lane, I ride invisible (they can't see me) and paranoid (even if they can see me, they'd be out to get me. Other than the occasional career into dangerous spots, and a time or two when I had to not-quite-lay-the-bike-down to avoid piling into the car that had just turned across my line, things have been fine.

After one of those swerve-into-traffic incidents, instigated when a driver disregarded a not-very-visible DO NOT ENTER sign on a parking-lot entrance just past a place where one road split into two, I contacted the police department's non-emergency number to note how the traffic law violation there was a bike hazard. Within a week or so, the sign had been repositioned to be more visible, a no-left-turn arrow was added, and the right side of the entrance was striped off to signal it was not to be driven on. Haven't had any problems since.

Good to hear about your city's engineer. Will they be looking at how to provide safe, encouraging bicycle options that will get more people to ride? My city has a Bicycle Advisory Committee, which is made up of volunteer bicycling residents who provide input to city government on what works, what doesn't, and what might help. And the city apparently listens. New bike lanes and better markings are going in almost all the time, and pretty much all the current loops at stoplights are marked with where to put one's bike to get the light.

From:

jesse_the_k

invisible and paranoid is a very wise way to interact with Car World. I've been hit three times by slow-moving cars, and I'm grateful my reading list helped me design a safety get-up so loud it screams.

Huzzah! for making the effort to complain, and huzzah^2 for SF taking action.

I've had the good fortune to serve on many transportation-related committees. Things happen when folks like you speak up!

From:

ng_moonmoth

It's not actually San Francisco. My city is one of those more or less interchangeable Silicon Valley communities distinguishable mainly by its specific roster of tech megacorp headquarters.

But the point is well taken, and the kudos is welcome. Thanks.

From:

ironymaiden

still waiting for mine to reopen, my county's covid numbers aren't good so i don't expect anything soon

i miss it like crazy, especially since it was how i kept in shape for kayaking self-rescue - so the pool being closed messes up two fitness things that made me happy

From:

jesse_the_k

"Kayak self-rescue" being that amazing core strength move from underwater to blessed atmosphere?

From:

ironymaiden

from being dumped outside the boat to back inside the boat, yes. it takes a lot to get out of the water and to twist and fold back into the cockpit without dumping the whole thing again.

i haven't learned to stay in and roll yet, but that's definitely something i would like to take a class on in the After Times.

From:

jesse_the_k

I'm a good swimmer, and in the past I've sailed a Sunfish and a Tech Dinghy. My mind boggles at the flexibility and strength required to reenter a kayak on the water!

Sending cleansing thoughts to your pool and hope it opens sooner rather than later.

From:

j00j

I'm so happy for all of my swimming friends.

Most of my exercise options haven't changed drastically, though having elliptical or a yoga class at the campus gym were nice. I've kind of enjoyed adding new options to my body program-- I recently got a bosu ball (half a ball on a plastic platform, so great for balance and stability exercises if one's baseline includes being able to get on the ball-- definitely not for everyone!) and it's fun for me.

I am VERY excited about achieving full vaccination so I can feel safe riding SEPTA and get to other walking/hiking locations-- that's the biggest access change in my near future.

From:

jesse_the_k

That's what those things are called -- I thought they were criminally-undersized portable trampolines of the type gymnasts use to mount uneven bars.

Do you walk on it?

Speaking of SEPTA, we're captivated by PHILLY DA an 8-part series claiming to show what it's like when a former civil rights advocate attempts to reform a profoundly hostile court/police system fashioned by Frank Rizzo theology.

If you happens to know local critics or essays, I'd be delighted to see them.

From:

peachpai

That's awesome, I'm glad you've been able to get back to swimming! I have yet to figure out how to get back to working out myself, despite having plenty of home equipment.

From:

jesse_the_k

Weirdly, having to go to this specific place wearing these specific garments makes it easier for me to motivate myself into actually doing it. As well as they're requiring appointments now, so dallying could mean none at all.

Before the pool reopened I was taking exceptionally slow walks (0.5mph) on a treadmill while I chatted with folks on the phone -- that combo worked well.

From:

peachpai

Yeah, going out to a place to work out was definitely motivating - I had a tendency to hit the gym when I was already out and about in pre-covid times. Rebuilding habits at home is hard!

From:

write_out

Oh yay! I'm glad you are able to get back to the pool!

I have no body program at all right now, which is not good. Working on changing that.

From:

jesse_the_k

Best wishes in your planning.

From:

gloss

Wow, this is such great news for you!

I am incredibly jealous. An indoor pool was *supposed* to open fairly close to me back in...March 2020. HA.

From:

jesse_the_k

Damn, I'm so sorry to hear that.

From:

duskpeterson

Hurrah that you can swim again!

We've been self-isolating for a year now, but we'll be fully vaccinated at the beginning of June. I'm hoping to be able to walk outside in the daytime this summer, but the community transmission here is still extremely high, so we'll see. We did buy an exercise cycle, which I still have to put together. If nothing else, I can open a window near the cycle and get some Vitamin D from the sun for the first time in a year.

From:

jesse_the_k

Sending bright sun your way!

From:

starshipfox

Swimming pools open here again on June 7th, but I doubt I'll be vaccinated by then, so I'm a bit torn on whether to go or not. I am VERY enthusiastic to get back into the water though! I'm so glad you were able to get back to the pool and that it was a good experience.

From:

jesse_the_k

Ugh, I'm sorry that you'll have to wait -- it IS delicious.

From:

jesse_the_k

Much woe on slow vaccination.

Are outdoor pools a thing in your part of the world? (There are a handful in Wisconsin, though more folks go for lakes or old quarries.)

From:

starshipfox

Many people swim in the sea here, and there's lost of easy access to sea swimming, but I find that the cold hurts my joints so much it undoes the good of being in the water.

I think vaccines are speeding up! Fingers crossed!

From:

jesse_the_k

Holy pretzels! Your warm seas are so cold!

The lake in my icon is around 21°c in August, and I wear a wetsuit to swim then.

Heated pools are a gift from heaven.

From:

starshipfox

I learnt to swim in the sea without a wetsuit, so I used to be fairly inured to the cold, but it just doesn't work for me any more. I'm so grateful to have heated pools, though I wonder if swimming in a wetsuit would be an option for me. I've never swum in a lake! The one in your picture looks so beautiful and calm.

From:

toft

I really want to swim again as part of my post-birth program of relearning how my body works! I just bought a swimsuit online in my new size: fingers crossed I get in a pool soon! So glad you have access again.

From:

jesse_the_k

Hope you'll be bobbing soon.

From:

dhampyresa

Pools here in France are only open for people with a medical reason to be there. For physical therapy reasons, I obtained a doctor's note recently! I am so so happy to get back into the water even if I can tell my body composition has changed from the difference in how I float and I can't swim as much as I want to (see above re pt).

From:

jesse_the_k

Very sad that you qualified but thrilled that you had access to the magic elixir of life (water). Are your pools chlorinated? Some pools here use a "saline system" which introduces the chlorine to the water in a cabinet away from the water, so less bleach smell on the skin. My pool doesn't have it, of course.

My pool is part of a rehab clinic (cardiac/orthopedic) so on The Last Day I quizzed the staff re: any possibility that lap swimming could be permitted by doctor's note--and I was willing to get a psychiatrist to attest to the importance of water in my life. They shook their heads sadly.

/back from back reading your journal and I want to appreciate

MANATEES!

because that's how I feel when I'm in the water. On land I'm stumbly but I shine with the life aquatic.

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