I grew up as a swimmer, training 10 times a week from 15 years old to 25, chasing Olympic goals. My event was the 10km marathon swim. I got close to making it, both in 2012 and again in 2016, making World Championship teams in between and racing on the World Aquatics World Cup circuit for five years. Once I finished up swimming professionally in 2016, after missing the Rio Olympics, I stayed fit, swimming 4-6 sessions a week in the pool. I even bumped it up to nine sessions when I had specific goals in my late twenties.
These days, being a dad to a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son, training has become a lot harder, especially through a Melbourne winter. I don't have any specific goals besides staying fit and healthy. I'm not worried about body shape, times, or how I compare to who I used to be. However, I do like knowing that I can swim fast and feel strong in the pool, which with how inconsistent I am with running this business, working another job at the same time and also dealing with sick kids, makes it tough. One week I will get to the pool 4 times and then the following week I won't be able to get in at all. Additionally, sometimes when I plan to go for a swim in the morning, the kids wake me up a few times during the night and then I can't get up in the morning, or I decide to get that extra 90 minutes to 2 hours of sleep instead. Perhaps I do need it, but then I kick myself during the day that I missed my swim, and I suppose, my own time.
The big question, is it harder to be a parent chasing a goal or harder being a professional athlete? I would like to say for myself it is actually harder being a busy parent to stay fit and healthy compared to when I was an elite, professional swimmer. When I was training 10 times per week, that is all I did, one thing to get right and perfect, all my energy into swimming. Compared to now, I feel it is so much harder to actually stay fit and feel good in the morning.
The morning swim, when I do make it, and I feel I have to make it the same way a runner or cyclist is, it helps with my mental health, and if I do miss a few too many mornings or don't go for a swim in the evenings, then I don't feel myself. It's that zen feeling, feeling the water between your fingertips, the sound of splashing on your ears and nothing else but your thoughts. That cold feeling of diving into the water, that chill that wakes you up in the morning, the first strokes of floating, that is my time where nothing else matters. But when I miss this, life can get hard, not saying that life isn't hard for everyone, but not swimming for me or missing a few swims or a week of swimming with sick kids makes it that little bit harder.
The changes
It's not the training that gets hard, it's the certainty. As a professional swimmer, my day was built around training. Now, training is the thing that has to fit around everything else, that is even if it occurs. It's not like I'm getting any faster, but it's the opposite, I'm getting slower year on year but that is ok.
Some days I like to think I am still an elite swimmer lol, my partner thinks that is funny if I have a niggle and go to the physio, she was a bit better swimmer than me, racing at two Olympics and just laughs. But it also is true, I don't swim for performance, I swim because it is my lifestyle, it is how I was brought up, it's in my DNA, I would rather go for a swim than go to the gym or for a run. I see myself as a lucky swimmer because I didn't burn out like a lot of swimmers I know that reached an elite level. My consistency is something to laugh at, I train with multiple different squads, and sometimes I will text my mate in the morning to say I can't make it, lol it's an old habit of texting my coach at 5am should I have been sick, it's so stupid but built into me.
Now how do I keep swimming when I have so many things on, the fact is that I actually don't have any idea. I can't really tell you anything positive or wise, I am still a swimmer and young parent learning to juggle parenting with perhaps getting a swim in if I am lucky. I tried writing this with AI and it gave me a bunch of rubbish, the things I do try are the following, not sure it is anything special:
• Try to wake up in the morning, if I can't get up, go for a swim at 7:30 at night after the kiddos are in bed.
• Just stay healthy, once the kids get sick and sleep quality drops, I won't be waking up.
• Just accept that I have to wait until my kids get a little older until I have more time to swim. I am ok with this because my kids are my life even if I spend way too much time building this wetsuit brand.
• My kids don't care if I swim which is ok, they don't need to, I just want them to grow up and enjoy the water and be safe around it.