Exercise and rage

A week or two ago I went swimming. I am a regular swimmer and usually the best way to describe my style would be, solid. I don't achieve much by way of speed, but you could leave me there for hours and I will still be going strong. I have a sort of world weary stamina that keeps me doing stroke after stroke after stroke. Some years back I used to do the BT swimathon regularly. This is a sponsored swim where you have to achieve 200 lengths. The first year I did it, I was in a group of five, who did 40 lengths each. The second year I did it, I split it 50 50 with my flatmate. The third year I did it, she and I competed against each other in the same lane, doing the whole 200. After a few years and a lot of work related stress I switched to boxing and never looked back. Nothing does it for my aggression quite like learning how to smash someone in the jugular with accuracy. But after my various orthopaedic injuries it became clear that boxing was never going to be my thing again, and back to the pool I went. I have relearned humility in the pool - I have had two operations in the last two years, one of them major, and after both I have kickstarted my rehab with slow limping walks up and down the length of the pool, progressing painfully to a measured front crawl, which oh joy oh joy after a few weeks would morph into fluid lengths of sheer unadulterated mobility. Recently, a gym injury I sustained courtesy of a wet floor in the cardio area for which my stupid gym has accepted full responsibility, has sent me back to the pool, tail between my legs. But when I got in the pool a week or two ago, which is where my story really starts, I was fuelled by something other than the usual need to keep up my health, no matter how nebulous the means. I climbed into the pool (an achievement by itself, actually - three months ago I was using the steps, and three months before that it was the disabled chair. May the saints preserve you from having to ask at reception for help with the disabled chair, then wait for half an hour for someone to turn up to winch you down in it. Frankly the humiliation of being stared at by people who are clearly wondering whether you need this kind of help is just because you are a bit too fat, is enough to send me to the maxi pack of Walkers crisps the second I get back home). Anyway, I climbed into the pool, took a deep breath, and swam. Eighty lengths of front crawl, without stopping. As I swam, each time I approached the end of another length, my usual impulse - stop, take some breaths - was replaced by a completely new voice, yelling obdurately inside my brain, no! Keep going, keep going, keep going. When I finally did stop, I was elated. Eighty lengths, no stopping, tumble turn at each end - I had never achieved that in all my years of active and regular exercise. Where had it come from? I thought about how I had been feeling while I was swimming. I had been angry. That was it. I had rage oozing from every pore, screaming inside my head, powering my muscles and creating an adrenalin that became the dominant force, refusing to acknowledge fatigue or the usual protective override that says, don't use up all your energy reserves right now, you have a day to get through that includes working, doing the washing, ironing, and running after your kids. And as a result I discovered I was capable of pushing myself far, far harder than I ever had before. I knew where this rage had come from. It wasn't the usual response to work stress or a need to get out. I was working off weeks of pent up helpless, impotent rage that came from my inability to do anything about the crippling appallingness of the medical treatment that a relative I loved deeply was having to put herself through. I wondered if this was what Olympic athletes did - summon from within themselves an aggression that would be completely unacceptable to display in the normal course of daily life - and harness its full potential to perform way beyond what their normal mental impulses would allow them to achieve. The hilarious thing about this is, that while this is the first time I had experienced this while exercising (though not the last - I have repeated the non stop 80 length session three times since then, drawing on the memory of the same rage), I have experienced it countless times while baking. Seriously. The impulse that flicks on like a light switch in my head when I walk into the kitchen, even when I am tired or busy or distracted, that says, MUST BAKE A CAKE RIGHT NOW! comes from the same place in my head, and when it results, 3 or 4 hours later, in a kitchen table laden with confectionery heaven, the drive to mix and stir and sieve and decorate, rather than put the kettle on, open the Hob Nobs and draw up a chair in front of the Times crossword, it is pushing my stamina to higher limits in exactly the same way as the eighty length sprint. The obvious difference is that if I used it more to swim and less to bake we would all be a lot healthier, not just me. But it also shows that my baking has never been about eating the cake. It has been about the channelling of bad energy into good, by making something beautiful. And the feeling I experience when I finish my marathon swim, is less about reaching my healthy goals, and more about achieving a milestone. Both these things - creating something beautiful, and reaching an exercise milestone - give me a sense of control over myself. And that makes sense doesn't it? The rage comes from the inability to control something terrible happening to someone I love. So I challenge myself to produce something that says, you can't control that. But you can control this. It restores balance, if only for a very, very short while. So. All I need is to have someone on standby to enrage me so that I can achieve my fantasy goal of swimming the Channel. I might see if I can find that bloke in a white van who cut me up so flagrantly on the North Circular Road last weekend. He would be the perfect candidate.