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| Seeing clearly now |
Alarmed by the pain in the right food I eschewed the customary Sunday long run for 20 lengths of the local 50m lido. A weightless exercise, but not without its trials and tribulations. A jerky, panicky swimmer with a ragged breathing technique, I'm sure I waste untold energy in the pool. I'm still trying to book a few one-to-one lessons with a coach, but we keep missing each other. The one positive and rather costly step I've made to improve my swimming - investing in Speedo swimgoggles - has been a mixed blessing. Being underwater weaing them is lovely: my eyes don't sting and I can admire everyone else's masterstrokes. somehow I feel more confident and dolpinesque with my head under, so I wish I could learn to save a bigger lungful of air to keep me going. Alas, my goggles are not an unqualified success.They've left me with unsightly puffiness under both eyes, banded by deep red furrows. I look like someone has punched me on the nose. Scouring an online chat thread on the subject, I realise it's a well known phenomenon, particularly among the middle aged. Some swimmers have become ex-swimmers because of it.
It seems you really do sacrifice the face when you embark too vigorously on a fitness regime to combat middle aged spread. Face droop, sun damage and now puffy eyebags ensure I look every one of my nearly 52 years. Being fit merely means I don't feel as old as I look.
I just have to convince myself that it's what I feel that matters. Good friend Ruth sent me an email the other day from Costa Rica. She says she has lost 20lb, wears the same clothes every day, rubs a bit of sunscreen and Nivea onto her sunburned face when she remembers and has never felt better or stronger. She doesn't know what she looks like, because she rarely looks in the mirror. That is probably the way forward, but less achievable in London, where you move among friends and colleagues who are apt to say 'you look tired' when you can't be arsed to do the whole make up thing. What they will make of these furrows and pouches under my eyes is too painful to consider.
It is more than my body I need to toughen up, that much is clear to me, with or without goggles
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