Banging on a Rock

After having the best swim of my life (this can happen fairly frequently when you have only been really swimming for a year) this week, I was excitedly discussing with Coach Hillary the progress. In this convo she passed along another Biscwelsiek Gem: Swimming is like banging on a rock.

I love when I get these words of wisdom from Hillary, but if you’re like me you may need a bit of an explanation. So you bang on a rock with a hammer and nothing seems to be happening, but really you’re making little cracks. Finally, one day, those little cracks equal a big crack and a huge chunk falls right off.

Well, I’m happy to report that a big chunk has fallen right into the pool. And it was one well deserved chunk if I say so myself considering I’ve logged over 225 miles in the pool this year.

The conversation progressed the next day with Dave, who gave a further explanation: “Have you ever [cracked concrete] for a day?  You take the sledgehammer and you hit and it looks like nothing happened.  You do it again and you see a dent, maybe a chip.  Three or four more hits and you get discouraged.  Maybe the 9th or 10th hit and you start to see a crack.  Your enthusiasm is renewed.  By the 20th or 25th, you have the feel even though your hands have long since blistered and your back aches.  Eventually a big chunk breaks off and you can pick it up and toss it aside.  Once you have defeated a solid piece, the rest becomes merely an exercise in persistence.”

I promptly played the girl card as my reason for never having the (clearly exciting) opportunity to crack concrete. And I think, for now, I’ll keep my concrete slab as the pool because I see some more cracks to get after 🙂