Good Old Fashioned Hard Work

I need to share a story.  And trust me, it has to do with my recovery, eventually.  It is a story about my son.

Insert eye rolling here...

As far as parenting goes, our first born son tends to be our test subject, so sometimes we get it right with him, sometimes we get it wrong.  Heck, we get it wrong with all our kids but we have learned from our mistakes and we are certainly better parents now than we were a few years ago.  But every child presents his or her own challenges so it feels rewarding when you get it right, which doesn't happen every day.

Shortly after the first of the year, one of the other parents encouraged us to sign him up for the swim team.  His school has a K-8 swim team and he is in 1st grade.  With a little coaxing he agreed to go out for the team.  He immediately enjoyed it but was unable to swim the full 25 yards required to compete in the meets.  He was stopping 4 or 5 times to grab the wall and take a breather.  After 2 practices, we received this email from the coach:

One of the requirements we have for eligibility on the swim team is that the kids be able to swim one full length (25 yards) of the pool unassisted (without use of the wall, lane rope, bottom of the pool, or coaches help).  This is both a safety issue and a means to efficiently coach the team.  

From what we have witnessed at practices thus far, he is not able to make a full length of the pool unassisted.  So we need to make some decisions.  

I want him to have a positive experience and am willing to allow him to continue with Sunday practices if you so choose, but I cannot enter him in any meets this year.  

After seeing the email, I was a little miffed for some reason and I knew he would be too.  He likes being part of a team and is quite competitive.  We dreaded having to tell him.  So my wife and I spoke and came up with a plan.  We would get him in the pool as often as possible and get him a few private lessons to assist with stroke refinement and overall confidence in the water.  We called the coach and he was supportive of the plan.  We told him we agreed he would not be in the first meet but would we reevaluate prior to the second meet.  My son was upset but agreed to the plan as well.  He just wanted to be part of the team.

It was, in reality, a bit more dramatic than that, with him exclaiming, "You don't do that to a teammate!"

The private lessons he received were excellent and the instructor pushed him very hard.  Back and forth she pushed him.  After two lessons, several more trips to the pool with my wife and I, he swam his first 25 yards in a mock relay in the practice prior to the second meet.  I wasn't at the practice but when he came home and told me, I was more than a little excited.

And just like that he was in the second meet.  He swam the 25 free individual and relay.  Since then he has been in a second meet where he was also in the 25 backstroke.  What's even better is that he is posting top 5 times in a fields of 20 swimmers in the 25 free.  He went from not being able to swim the full length to being competitive.  After swimming his first event and swell with pride after getting 4th place, he gave us the "Discount Double Check" from the side of the pool.  My wife and I were beaming.

Quite simply what he learned is a "little" hard work goes a long way.  And that hard work pays off.

And it was good reminder for me.  At the same time he was working to participate in a swim meet, I had begun working with a personal trainer.  He corrected my form on a number of exercises and I felt weak.  I was walking around with a limp and felt weak.  I couldn't do as many repetitions as I thought I should be doing.  The hip was tilted and I didn't see much of a light at the end of the tunnel.

I remember asking the trainer about my recovery, "How long will this take?"  

He is a pretty reasonable guy so his response was, "It takes as long as it takes."

To which I responded, almost without thinking, "Okay, I am willing to do the work."

Shortly thereafter, my son complained a little about going to one of his swimming lessons because it was "hard".  And admittedly, the instructor did push him.  It was the first time as a parent I felt like I was pushing my child in the way I imagine the Williams' sisters or Todd Marinovich were pushed by their fathers.  Of course it wasn't that extreme but I worried we were pushing him a bit too much given his age.  

So I explained it in a way he might understand.  He often tells us how he wants to be Aaron Rodgers when he grows up, so I told him guys like Aaron Rodgers work harder than he does at swim practice and they do it day after day for hours.  With that rationalization, he accepted the practices and has continued to proceed.  We have backed off a bit with the lessons - he has had 3 and will probably have 1 or 2 more, because he has in my mind achieved the goal for now and should just enjoy the season from here on out.  But he will continue to get lessons throughout the year.  His younger brother is now working to swim on his own by the end of the year and he is only 4 1/2.

As for me, month 2 with the trainer began to reap what I had sowed in the 1st month.  My strength gains were quite good and just in the past week I think my gait is improving.  The hip hike isn't quite as dramatic.  The pain is a little less.  A female complimented my appearance.  And I have a renewed motivation. I want to work hard.  I want to get better.  I know I will.

I felt as if my son and I learned the same lesson.  The problem is that I am almost 38 and he is almost 7.  But I guess the lesson of hard work is one that you continuously keep learning.  And if you don't, I suppose you aren't a very productive member of society.

More importantly what I got was a new sense of pride.  I was proud of my son and our parental abilities to teach him a good lesson.  And I got a little pride in my physical abilities.  And as a former athlete, the ability to be strong and move aptly it a part of the way I see myself.  Now I know I am not broken, I am strong and getting stronger.  I am not old.  I can be better than I was before the accident.  I will come back to 100% and no one will ever know I had the accident.  

All it will take is a little (more) hard work.  It will just take as long as it takes.

Thanks for reading...