There is something about not being able to lift your arms after a hard workout that calms my soul.

I have some experience as an athlete, mostly in my youth, football, baseball and basketball before high school, cross country, track and swimming then. I ran in college as well. I coached four years of high school varsity track and six years of varsity cross country before we had kids. I biked across the country with a good friend. I have run four marathons.

These were years ago. Now I am calling myself a triathlete. Calling myself because I have only done one. I am fifty-seven years old and I want to be an athlete again.

I am now running, biking and swimming at least two times each per week. I am starting off with the goal of finishing. Finishing without swimming the elementary backstroke, as I did during my first one, to keep my face out of the water. 

I have developed an open water swimming phobia. It is a hard issue to tackle when I only have access to pool swimming. As a kid I was very afraid of water, to the point my dad had to offer to get me a monkey so that I would put my head under water.

I did. He didn’t. Lesson learned.

Still I am swimming twice a week and keeping my face in the water the entire time.

On the advice of a friend I hired a personal trainer through our local rec center. I thought that I would learn how to best use their facilities, how to squat and bench correctly and how to use a medicine ball. I thought that I needed more than cardio fitness.

I thought that I had similar strength to my youth. I was able to do a few pullups and thirty pushups. I just needed a tune up.

I was wrong. So wrong.

The first time we met Sam had me balance on one leg, squat, do lunges, and talk to her about any injuries I’d have. I mentioned tearing my Achilles tendon twenty years ago, and dislocating my right shoulder over thirty years ago. And I have some arthritis in my knees. That was about it. 

That first session I realized that those injuries are still affecting me. My right leg is noticeably thinner than my left. My right hip is weaker than my left. My right arm is weaker than my left. I can’t lift myself off the ground with my right calf, though this is easy with my left.

And here I thought I’d left those injuries well behind me. Decades behind me.

It’s a bit of a moment for me, to realize that past injuries are still with me. That I will carry them for the rest of my life. Probably my mental injuries–depression and anxiety–which developed in my youth, will probably affect the rest of my life as well.

The thing is, I knew about those. I’ve always known those. 

I did bench press today, at the start with only the bar. Easy peasy, I thought. With Sam, anytime I think easy peasy, I’ve been dead wrong.

The thing was, she had me go slowly, holding at the bottom and rebounding quickly at the top so that I couldn’t lock my arms and have a short rest. In that situation, even the bar was tough.

We built up and did three consecutive sets of eight where the weight decreased for each set. During the final set my right arm just didn’t have it. My left arm did. 

Sam and I talked about it and she noticed that my balance was off, clearly favoring my left side over my right. 

I’ll tell you though, it made me sad. I don’t like to know my weaknesses. 

Sam assured me that with some time the arms will balance out. Don’t give up.

Without Sam, without a trainer, a coach, a guide, I would just be resigned that my imbalance would always be with me. Like I said before.

I don’t want to be resigned to anything. Not something that I can control. Not something that I have the power to correct.

I recently learned the serenity prayer: 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

God doesn’t have to be involved here. This is a message to fill your life with hope, a path forward, a call to accept being human and to care for yourself.

I can get stronger. I can swim in a lake with my head in the water. I can reject resignation to feeling old, even as I cannot stop becoming old. 

And so, I’m working it. 

Let’s see what happens.