The Number Wins
On presence, feeling, and what we trade away without noticing
In the pool the other day it struck me how I could feel, not just the contact of the cool water on my body, but the pressure of the water on each of my fingers as I rotated into the streamline shape that slips through the water. The stability that comes from connecting the long lever of my arm through my armpit, down to my hip, along the leg. The way I send that shape forward by recovering my arm and rotating to do it all again on the other side.
What do you feel when you swim?
In a Zoom room with my swimmers, we don’t talk about how many yards we did or what our time was. We talk about what happened when you tuned into your connection—and how that changed the quality of your stroke.
I was talking with a swimmer earlier this week who has access to the open water right at the end of her street. She told me that she’s biked down there with every intention of swimming—but sometimes doesn’t get in if the conditions are rough. Not because she can’t. But because she has a preset amount of yards to hit each week and if she got in just to experience the water—to feel the wind, the texture of the surface, the way her body responds—she might not meet the number. And somehow, the number wins.
I described to her how my coaching is different. How we share, not just that we feel ‘good’ today, but that the water felt slippery when I achieved a certain shape, without me needing to spell it out, she got it. Steering all of her training toward a number each week was helping her feel fitter and faster than in years past, but she was also feeling spent and unable to show up for other activities that she loves.
These experiences remind me to lean into what no algorithm can replicate: the actual feeling of being in a body, present, in the water—or in life. Not the social media feed that decides what I should care about today. Not the autoplay that knows what I'll watch next before I do. Not the headline engineered to make me click before I've even thought about why.
I can’t seem to fully abstract myself from the technical world because I’m curious what we are becoming. I don’t want to shut any doors of opportunity, but I stay grounded by tending to my senses in the pool, in the connection with my swimmers, my family, friends.
What do you still let yourself feel?