A Mere Twelve Months

This time last year I was struggling to swim 500m in the pool.

This week, I just started my third (count 'em) third Masters 12-week session at the pool.

It's shocking sometimes how much things can change in a year.

Last year, I was struggling through 500m of swimming.

This past Monday, I was relieved to see that we only had an 800m warm-up followed by 1800m of relatively easy swimming and kicking to do. It was the first day of the new Masters class after all and Christine needed to get a sense of the swimming ability of the new folks in the class. Plus I was still tired and recovering from my cold and hadn't swum in a week.

So 2600m in an hour and a half seemed like a great way to ease back in to swimming.

Ah-mazing what difference a year makes. Ask me to do that last year and it would have been impossible...or it would have taken me all day.

Oh, and did I mention that I ran 14k last weekend without too much trouble?

Anyone remember this time last year? I had a stress fracture last September and, after taking 12 weeks off, was just getting back to running. And this week last year I was walking for nine minutes and running for one. That's it - walk nine minutes, run one minute - go home.

That one minute was hard. Harder, in a lot of ways, that last weekend's 14k was. Not just psychologically (although that certainly was a challenge) but physically too. I could hardly breathe with the effort of running a leisurely one minute.

Who knows where I'll be this time next year. I may run a marathon. I may be off running again with an injury. I may have swum Lake Ontario. I may have decided that I no longer want to run or swim and have taken up roller derby and rugby instead (doubtful but always a possibility I guess).

Nothing to do but wait and see. The way time flies, December 2013 will be here before we know it. Which reminds me - have you started your Christmas shopping yet?