Flashes of Panic

There was, for a while, a theory in developmental biology which suggested that all species went through each phase of their evolution in the course of their development to adulthood. The theory—known sometimes, now, as “Haeckel’s Lie“—has been largely discredited, but I still think of it in the pool.

While I’ve made some gains in strength over the last few years in the pool, much more of my improvement has simply been form. I’ve learned how to breathe more efficiently, control my body roll, kick more powerfully, streamline longer when I push off the wall, and get more distance from each cycle of my arms.

As I get tired, though, these advances desert me in roughly the reverse order I picked them up, a sort of reverse ontogeny of my swimming form. I seldom let myself get tired enough to thrash the way I see some people do, but it would come eventually.

The point of training, of course, is to push back that degeneration of form, to be able to swim the length of ever-longer races while maintaining efficient form. To evolve, in fact.

Now Playing: Georgia O from Play by The Nields