--- title: On swimming, learning and my journey to being the last one description: A personal essay by software architect Oskar Dudycz about learning to swim at age 35 and competing in his first open-water race, finishing 53rd out of 59. He... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/on-swimming-learning-and-my-journey-to-being-the-last-one-iuelwkrlb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: On swimming, learning and my journey to being the last one | daily.dev og:description: A personal essay by software architect Oskar Dudycz about learning to swim at age 35 and competing in his first open-water race, finishing 53rd out of 59. He... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/on-swimming-learning-and-my-journey-to-being-the-last-one-iuelwkrlb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/iUElWkRLB.png og:image:alt: On swimming, learning and my journey to being the last one og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # On swimming, learning and my journey to being the last one **[Event-Driven by Oskar Dudycz](https://daily.dev/sources/event-driven-io)** · 9 min read · 8 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A personal essay by software architect Oskar Dudycz about learning to swim at age 35 and competing in his first open-water race, finishing 53rd out of 59. He reflects on adult learning challenges, the value of deadline-driven practice, and competing against your past self rather than others. The piece draws loose parallels to developer life — the importance of hobbies, physical exercise for desk workers, and celebrating incremental progress. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [On swimming, learning and my journey to being the last one](https://daily.dev/posts/on-swimming-learning-and-my-journey-to-being-the-last-one-rrzsopjty) · Architecture Weekly · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [You Are Learning. But Are You Enjoying It?](https://daily.dev/posts/you-are-learning-but-are-you-enjoying-it--osk89z6ts) · We Are .NET · 7 upvotes · 6 comments - [5 Lessons at 50](https://daily.dev/posts/5-lessons-at-50-th62ourrj) · Metadata · 213 upvotes · 23 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/on-swimming-learning-and-my-journey-to-being-the-last-one-iuelwkrlb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"On swimming, learning and my journey to being the last one","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-swimming-learning-and-my-journey-to-being-the-last-one-iuelwkrlb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-swimming-learning-and-my-journey-to-being-the-last-one-iuelwkrlb"},"datePublished":"2026-07-17T15:26:16.286Z","dateModified":"2026-07-19T12:21:07.289Z","description":"A personal essay by software architect Oskar Dudycz about learning to swim at age 35 and competing in his first open-water race, finishing 53rd out of 59. 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