Cold Swim: My Bag Of Mental Tricks

 I looked at the satellite weather forecast in the local paper today. It showed a near-vertical red swooping arrow that indicated the jet stream's path.  It's lassooing straight down from the arctic today, taking no prisoners, laughing at us here in California, bringing icebergs with it - or so it seems.

We're fresh off a week or more of false summer weather, sitting happily in warm pools of sunshine.  The AT&T Pro-Am Golf Tournament came and went, accompanied by the best February weather you could possibly imagine.  Right on the heels of the tournament, real winter weather has blown in.  Yesterday dropped temperatures to freezing.  There has been hail, wind and rain - quite a contrast for everyone to adjust to.

Skiers are happy; a friend is jumping up and down with joy in the Sierra, anticipating a long weekend skiing up there.  Not a skier, I am trying to be happy for her and readjusting myself to winter's icy fingers in a hurry.  Most, if not all of my adjustment is mental:  I have to play little tricks on myself to cope with the cold.

Some examples I tell myself as I swim:

*  Just think how warm the showers are going to feel once you're done with this swim.  And they are.  There really is no better way to enjoy a hot shower than after a challenging workout in the dark in winter with coaches yelling "now go fast!" as if you weren't trying before.  I try to concentrate on how miserable the coaches are up there on the deck; their murderous swim sets are matched by mother nature's crankiness.  Then again, maybe they make up murderous swim sets because mother nature got cranky first.  I'll have to think about that one.

*  Imagine how good you will feel if you don't indulge in a dessert; you'll step on the scale and you'll have lost weight.  That's a hard sell, mostly because the gratification is very delayed.  Hasn't anyone invented delicious food that makes you lose weight instead of gain?  This also means I can't reward my hard work with something like a big stack of pancakes or a caramel macchiato.  Newp, a hot shower will have to be the big reward.

*  Be nice to old people.  They've lived a long time and can do whatever they want; they deserve some elbow room and no restrictions.  I want that when I get old.  But, jeesh, where does that meanness come from anyway?  And how is it that one very slow swimmer can take up an entire lane so you can't pass them and share the lane?  I've had long discussions with friends about "floppers" who do that at our local sports center that has an indoor pool.  It's one of the main reasons my friends and I don't swim there.  Can't pass old people; they're like spider monkeys or something, with legs and arms stretching vast distances as they make their way slowly down the center of the lane.  It really defies logic when you see it in real time.  They drive like that, too.  Slowwwwwly.  Very tiny old ladies in big giant cars so big that they can't see over the steering wheel.  You just see this little bit of the top of their heads.  If not for that, it looks like the Oldsmobile or Cadillac is empty, driving itself down the road.  Slowwwwwly.

*  Be nice to young people.  Their hormones are fogging their vision, and life is one big drama after another.  I don't want to be the one to inform them they don't really know anything yet and won't until they hit 50.  Just because they can swim like dolphins means nothing, right?  I just remind myself - as they blur past me - that I'm at least 30 years older and could have swum circles around them in my day.  A little self-aggrandizement goes a long way when you're dragging buckets up and back in the pool.  Yessir, it does.  

*  Someone will discover me and my raw talent someday and I will have my 15 minutes of fame.  That's a good one and gets me through most everything.  I imagine glorious, wonderful, awe-inspiring performance that brings the whole pool to a jaw-dropped standstill.  Heck, not just the pool, the world.

With a virtual bag of tricks I carry everywhere, I can deal with just about anything.  I'm pretty sure all the other swimmers do the same thing.  Then, when the workout is over and coaches have toddled off home, we recount it all in those awesome hot showers for a long time afterwards.  The retelling is pretty close to what happens in the mind, in the pool, in the dark, on cold winter mornings.  Nothing but glory.