I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with distance running for most of my life. I love the healthy benefits of stress reduction, aerobic fitness, ability to eat carbs without remorse, etc. And the mental test of going further and faster is rewarding too.

Unfortunately, my body isn’t built well enough for distance running. I’d been in an endless cycle of fitness > injury > recovery for most of my thirties and forties. Eventually, I had to give up running entirely about 9 years ago.

Since then, I mourned the loss of running because I couldn’t find an easy substitute. As much as I love hiking, it’s more time consuming to drive to a hilly trailhead, do a hike of multiple hours, and drive home to get the same impact as a 30-60 minute run. So there’s a natural limit to hiking’s frequency and benefit.

In April of 2018, the fitness club I belong to installed solar panels over the parking lot. With that, the outdoor pool went from open & heated seasonally to open & heated year-round. I decided I would try doing some laps in April 2018 in case swimming could become a new running substitute.

5 minutes into my first session, I had to stop. My heart was racing. My body temperature was elevated. I wanted to puke, like the feeling of sprinting for 400 meters around a track. “This is intense!” I thought to myself.

Since then, I’ve slowly developed a lap swimming habit to the point of 3-4 sessions per week for 30-35 minutes each. The results have been transformative.

My aerobic fitness is such that the most challenging hill hikes I take are now pretty straightforward. I’m not at 10k road race fitness, but still.

There’s been a commensurate impact on my muscular fitness. Core fitness in particular is an amazing by-product of swimming. Even as I traveled to India 4 times a year in 2017-2019, I never experienced back pain thanks to a strong core. And other muscles have emerged throughout my upper and lower body.

What’s most amazing about swimming is the lack of recovery time needed. I’ve done laps for multiple days in a row and not felt any soreness or recovery time needed until maybe 4-5 days in a row. That’s a big contrast to the recovery discipline most runners need.

Last, swimming has been a springboard to other fitness habits. From this foundation I’ve introduced things like kettle bell exercises, a little bit of yoga and daily walking.

And of course a healthy body leads to healthy eating habits and positive mental health. Put all of this together and yes, my life is much different today than in recent years past.

If you’re in search of a fitness activity with aerobic and muscular benefits with limited time commitments, I can’t recommend swimming enough. Happy laps!