Swimming is brutal. The persistent clock is the enemy. Improvement plateaus are endless. Our Valpo Masters coach Robert pushes us – the nerve of him. Where does he come up with his intervals? Sometimes I think he forgets we didn’t swim with him at Wabash. Lane 2 – Stacia, Tom, Olivia, and sometimes Jim – is my only motivation for getting in the Valparaiso YMCA pool at 5:30am. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We’re like a family – we encourage, we tease, and we bicker. And we get frustrated. We lost a beloved member Dave to injury, and now the traitor has opted to swim at Valparaiso University. We miss him and want him to come back, but he says we’re too fast. I say Lanes 3 and 4 are the speed demons. We’re fun.

Lane 2 puts up with corrections in grammar – “You are going to swim slowly not slow. Use an adverb.” Lane 2 puts up with getting smacked by my lazy left arm when I get tired. Tom got punched in the head last Saturday. Lane 2 shares tips – rotate, bilateral breath, explode off the wall, kick harder, try these hand paddles, there’s a deal on fins at Swimoutlet.com.

Lane 2 encourages; a simple “you can do it” is all it takes to make the interval. Our coach would prefer like less chatter from Lane 2, and maybe we’d each shave off a whopping two seconds from our best 100 if we knocked off the banter. But I go for the company. They make me laugh – really hard- at least once a day.

Lanes 3 and 4 are full of focused fast swimmers, some ranked nationwide as triathletes and masters competitors. They seem to glide effortlessly through the water. My husband Tim belongs in Lane 3, but sometimes he joins our lane when he feels like dogging it, usually on Saturdays. Lane 1 consists of the true heroes exhibiting perseverance; some could move to Lane 2, but they don’t. Maybe we talk too much.

Lane 2 is my home for now, and we’re an odd mix (redundant after already stating what time we swim). Olivia is thirty years younger than the rest of us, and we’ll miss her when she leaves for Penn State to pursue her PhD. I suspect that when Olivia is fifty, she will still be in the pool. I hope we have set that example for her. I hope she continues to smile, greet others warmly, and take turns leading. We all tell each other “great workout” and “have a good day” as we exit the pool. Little things are actually very big things.  They keep me from hitting the snooze button.