WINTER MORNING

The alarm clock just went off and like every Saturday morning I prepare things to go to the club training at Parc del Fòrum which is where we are based. It’s a bit lazier today, because yesterday there was a storm and rain and, as usual, there are bad seas, with high waves. Nevertheless, I leave the house to support my colleagues who will surely go to train.

I arrive at the club with the sky a bit cloudy – no sign of a storm – and cold. This cold is a preview of how I will find the water.

But before that, we do some gymnastics – to warm up – because the trainer tells us that it’s very good for the CORE and to avoid injuries. Like good boys we pay attention and a few do gymnastics. The sun begins to rise and the sea is no longer as rough as it seemed.

At the end of the exercises we go to the changing room to put on the neoprene and now it’s time to taste the water in winter: 13 degrees. Buff

For those who have never done it, I have to tell you that the first few minutes are chilling, the cold – especially on the face – makes you notice the typical feeling of sticking needles, a very unpleasant feeling. But after a while you get used to it and you don’t notice it as much anymore, just a bit cold in general.

For all that it is already mid-morning, now we have a clear, bright day, with a summer sun and the sea is much flatter than expected. We start swimming and after a few minutes of acclimatization we understand why we are in the water, swimming. The feelings of freedom, solitude and companionship at the same time, the tranquility of swimming unhurriedly, at your own pace, and occasionally stopping to join the companions who are further behind, joking and continuing to swim and enjoying.

In winter the coach only lets us be in the water for an hour, for him safety is very important and we appreciate that he cares. We swim with complete safety and tranquility knowing that we have our support boat by our side.

We get out of the water, go to the changing room, to the hot showers to recover our temperature and freshen up. Let’s take the opportunity to comment on how the training went and what we’ve had.

Then at the end of the morning we gather at the bar to recover our strength and drink or eat something. Of course the conversations revolve around the activity we just did and they drift into other topics.

Little by little the colleagues are leaving and on the way home I think how lucky I am to have overcome the laziness of the morning.