Say Goodbye To Another Activity?

A couple of weeks ago, I tried swimming again.

Many of you will recall that I was advised that swimming would be great therapy, so when I was released from the "Big House" in January 2010 I was looking forward to time back in the pool when we were in Whistler for the Olympics.

Fortunately for me, Laura was in the pool when I attempted to swim across the shallow end - thank god I didn't try the deep end. I sank like a rock. No matter what I did, I couldn't float.

Fast forward to the spring of 2011, when I tried the same thing in Palm Springs. I could sort of float on my back for a few seconds, but that was all. When we took the cruise to Australia, although the pools were salt water and very buoyant, I got the same results.

So two weeks ago was my first "adult swim lesson". Amazingly, I could front crawl about 25m or so - and about the same on my back. Clearly, things were coming back.

Then I tried skiing last week. I thought for sure that this would be an easy one for me, and I figured the lack of a walking/kicking motion (like walking and swimming) would make it very easy.

It wasn't.

I could sort of ski like a real beginner for about an hour. I could link turns on green runs, but could only do about ten of them before running out of steam. Then, after the hour was up, my right foot would start to behave badly and unpredictably, and my entire right leg would tire out.

So I likely could improve on skiing if I was able to go an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon (to give my leg and foot a chance to recover). But at $75 or so a day for a lift ticket, it's an awful expensive process - with no certain outcome. And at that rate it would take weeks.

The swimming lessons are an hour long, and I seem to be able to do that OK. So for now, I'll pass on the skiing and stick to the swimming...