A couple weeks ago, my partner and I took a train to spend some days around his hometown. One afternoon, we accidentally went around the entire skirt of a mountain, relentlessly harassed by insects (I had never seen so many). Without having planned it, we made one last effort to walk even further to see a big lake where swimming and fishing were permitted. I couldn't swim in it because I hadn't brought my swimwear.
I swim in pools regularly, a couple times a week for the past 5 years or so. I had been thinking about swimming in open waters besides the beach for some time. I unfortunately live in a city without much greenery, so I'd love to swim while sight seeing — but I don't have enough money to travel (even short distances) or buy a neoprene wetsuit at the moment.
At first, I was sad while I stared at the lake, unable to go into it. However, that night it crossed my mind for the first time that, if I was now serious about open water swimming, I would need to physically prepare myself for it first. And having something to work towards while I save money made me feel excited.
I've been back home for some days now. Today I broke a long streak of not being able to swim because of the trip and a bad cold that I've been recovering from. I was off to the gym with an objective in mind: see for how long I could swim laps without stopping nor touching the pool's floor.
I don't normally do resistance swimming. I swim for 20 to 40 minutes at a time and mostly do sprints for cardio, resting between some laps. I expected to last for around 30 minutes when not swimming for speed; but, to my surprise, I managed to swim for 1 hour and 15 minutes straight. I even felt like I could keep going, but I stopped because I was hungry for lunch already (and wrinkly as a raisin).
Being able to swim for one hour in a pool would probably amount to around 30 minutes in open water (currents and cold are very tiring) so I still have a lot of training to do and long hours to swim. Thankfully, lengthy swimming is a little less dull while listening to music or podcasts with my waterproof mp3 player, one of the best buying decisions I've made.
Today's swimming has also been stimulating for another reason. A few days ago, I had the shower thought that front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly couldn't possibly be all existing swimming strokes. An awkward Internet search for "weird swimming strokes" revealed to me the sidestroke. It's a very energy-efficient stroke because of the long gliding it generates, and so it is used by lifeguards, the military and long-distance swimmers.
With one side upwards, the kick is done by separating the legs by the knees, one to the front and the other to the back, and then bringing them together swiftly. At the same time, the arm from the upper side pushes water towards the feet, and the other arm stretches forward for the glide before bringing the arms together for the next stroke. Here's how it looks:
(Image credit: Claraakc, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons).
I was eager to try it today, and I was surprised to find that I could already get the hang of it with both sides, with some repetition. I ended up using exclusively sidestroke in the last 20 minutes of the swim, because it was indeed less tiring and just as fast as breaststroke or backstroke.
I'll be testing my resistance further soon. I'm happy that, between my new long-distance objective and a new stroke, I could still bring some novelty into a hobby that goes all the way back to my childhood.