Swimming is brutal. Who in their right mind would spend a crisp spring evening in an enclosed pool full of competitive swimmers impatient on your slower pace after a terrible day at work, only to feel the urgency to hit the bed so you can make it it to the 6am morning run?
No matter how fast you try, the reward is futility. You feel you will never catch with your teammates. The shame of being moved to a slower lane looms over your head. You struggle to breathe. Your muscles get flooded with lactic acid. All you want is three seconds of rest between sets.
There is no “bright side”. Competitive swimming is rough, as with any other sport. The circumstances never improve. If anything, you learn to sit with the pain. You embrace the humility that comes with hanging around people faster than you.
A lot of it is strategy: you learn to save energy to achieve a constant pace. A lot of it is technique: the rotation of your palms entering the water changes as you switch from a moderate pace to a sprint. A lot of it is wisdom: the less effort you put in your kick, the faster you will go.
Most importantly, swimming builds resilience. You break yourself down again and again so you can improve. Perhaps this is among the kindest things you can do to yourself: to believe you can improve through a disciplined and rigorous training that leads to a better life. Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.