Just two more rounds, I re­as­sured my­self, as my mind left the task at hand to search for new thoughts of en­cour­age­ment. I filled my burn­ing lungs once more with the cool night air and then re­leas­ing my grip on the wall, go­ing limp, I ex­haled slow­ly, sink­ing in­to the dim still­ness be­low.

Push­ing up off the bot­tom of the pool I re­turned to the sur­face, glanc­ing up at the full moon. I once again breathed in life and then let my­self re­lax and sink, now gaz­ing at the su­per­moon from be­neath the sur­face. I bobbed like this for some time, shak­ing out my tired, stiff mus­cles be­fore push­ing off to swim an easy 100m of ac­tive re­cov­ery. I rev­elled in the now ef­fort­less ease of move­ment that was in such stark con­trast to the near-im­pos­si­ble re­sis­tance train­ing that both pre­ced­ed, and would soon fol­low.

It was around eight in the evening. I was where you can find me on most evenings if I am in the coun­try; alone in Blue Dol­phins Pool, get­ting the job done. By eight, af­ter four hours of train­ing, two hours in the gym and an­oth­er two of swim­ming, I am nor­mal­ly men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly ex­haust­ed.

In the cor­ner, float­ing by the wall, the near-im­pos­si­ble rub­ber stretched cords mocked me, at­tached on one end to the start­ing block, and to a belt on the oth­er. I quick­ly put on the belt and ratch­eted the buck­le down tight.

"Two more rounds! Let's go!" I ex­claimed as I pushed off the wall and charged full speed, surg­ing through the break­out, in­to a blis­ter­ing fast rhythm that I strug­gled to hold against the thick rub­ber cords that pulled me back. With each all-out pull I ad­vanced less and less, un­til af­ter ten strokes I had stretched the cords to their max­i­mum length, en­su­ing a fu­ri­ous strug­gle against them just to re­main sta­tion­ary.

Cav­i­tat­ing in the wa­ter, I sensed my­self be­gin­ning to drift back­wards. I lift­ed my head, ceased the strug­gle and was sling-shot­ted vi­o­lent­ly back to the wall. Tak­ing hold of my breath, I de­lib­er­ate­ly slowed my heart with a deep in­hale in­to my bel­ly, a coun­ter­in­tu­itive hold, and then a force­ful ex­ha­la­tion. The burn­ing sen­sa­tion in my limbs and core be­gan to sub­side.

Af­ter an in­ter­val of 20 breaths I was off again. This time, in ad­di­tion to the cord, I had to bat­tle with my fa­mil­iar old en­e­my; fa­tigue, charg­ing as I held my breath, I went over a men­tal check­list of tech­nique as I sensed things be­gin­ning to fall apart from the re­sis­tance, lack of oxy­gen and mount­ing fa­tigue; out, 12 strokes, a breath, and back. An­oth­er 20 breaths, and then out and back again, I could feel the lac­tic acid poi­son­ing me. "One more, one more!" I yelled.

De­spite be­ing alone un­der the moon, in my mind every­thing was trans­formed, I was now un­der the bright lights, in front of tens of thou­sands of scream­ing spec­ta­tors, glar­ing down the pool's black line, arch-ri­vals to my left and right and just 12.5m to the fin­ish, to ei­ther glo­ry or de­feat.

My en­er­gy lift­ed in­to a burn­ing fire of adren­a­lin in my so­lar plexus, in­ten­si­fy­ing with each of the 20 breaths. Nine­teen, in, hold, out, 20 and then, with­out hes­i­ta­tion I blast­ed off sens­ing my­self gain­ing on my ri­vals on ei­ther side of me, chan­nel­ing all my ag­gres­sion and frus­tra­tion, imag­in­ing the fi­nal surge in­to the wall, re­dou­bling my ef­forts, lift­ing my kick, keep­ing the rhythm that would keep me, I pow­er­ful­ly churned the wa­ter to vic­to­ry. There was a sud­den jerk right as I imag­ined my­self reach­ing for the wall.

Sens­ing that I had gained the up­per hand on a close fin­ish, I re­laxed and let the cords do the work, bring­ing me back to the wall as I raised a fist tri­umphant­ly.

"One more round!" I gasped as I un­hitched the belt, bob­bing in the dark si­lence.

Peo­ple seem so shocked to learn that I swim here alone. I just smile, know­ing it is im­pos­si­ble to de­scribe the in­trin­sic mo­ti­va­tion ma­chine that I have de­vel­oped over the years.

Dry­ing off, I saw a fig­ure ap­proach­ing in the moon­light. It was Cur­tiss, the pool's 76-year-old care­tak­er who spends a few nights a week on the premis­es. Cur­tiss saw me and ca­su­al­ly walked over, and af­ter our usu­al catch up he asked. "How was it?"

"Al­right, an­oth­er day at the of­fice," I joked.

"That's right, George you are a pro­fes­sion­al!" Cur­tiss re­tort­ed.

I smiled with pride, bask­ing in the hard-earned af­ter­glow of sat­is­fac­tion from my work out. Cur­tiss gets it, I re­mem­ber think­ing.

Wish­ing him good night, I grabbed my bag and head­ed home for din­ner.