Those who know me know that I am not a great swimmer. It doesn't come natural to me and I am simply not good at it. But my coach seems to think that I have an OK technique (note that I didn't use the word "good", OK seems more appropriate) and that I can shed a lot of time of my ironman swim time. So I am now swimming every day. EVERY DAY!!!
Monday saw me just struggling through it. I haven't swam in a while and my arms felt heavy and I just felt very slow. Hang on, I was slow. I normally swim first thing in the morning before work and the main reason is that in the evening the pool is full of "leisurely" swimmers. And since on Tuesday morning I had an early meeting and couldn't make it to the swim I had to go after work. Never again!! How can people even try to swim in there?!
There are several types of leisurely swimmers. My favourite one are the girls with full make-up on and their hair tied high up so it doesn't get wet whilst they are generally slowly breast-stroking with their head above the water. They do not seem to see the signs "Fast lane" or "Medium Lane" or if they do they probably think that they belong there. They will make faces and get highly annoyed if they get even slightly splashed by you trying to overtake them.
Then there are the random old men who will just start chatting to you in between your sets. When you clearly do not have time. They normally only swim few laps and just chill at the end of the pool.
And then there are couples who obviously think that they and their cuddling, smooching or whatever else they do (I really do not want to know) belong to the fast lane. She is usually in her best bikini and of course, with the full make-up on.
So having tried to swim on Tuesday evening and being utterly frustrated by all of the above and by someone slower than me in my lane deciding that the best time to push off the wall was as I am about to turn, I decided that evening swims are no more.
So I now only do morning swims, and five swims already done this week. My shoulders, arms, upper body, everything is aching. And as I was swimming this morning saying to myself that it was the last swim for this week, i got to my desk to find an email from the coach - 3 km swim tomorrow. Ouch!
5 comments:
Good luck with the swimming. I need to hit the pool soon to get ready for tri training. I don't care for it very much and I'm not the chic in the bikini and makeup. :D
Those 'swimmers' are everywhere. I normally do my workouts so I break at the other end of the pool to avoid the old men who just want to chat. I always feel bad just swimming away when they are mid sentence, and they never seem to get the hint that I'm not going to let them finish their thought if my rest interval is up.
The old men are the worst! I just try to avoid starting the conversations to begin with. We don't have too many of the couples or hot chix at our pool. More old people and families. As long as they stay out of my way, I don;t mind them. It is good they are exercising. Keep up the swimming, make sure you work on the technique and you will see tons of improvement this year!
Oh tooo funny, but completely true! The pool looks nice!! I like that it is indoors - in the morning here I wish ours was inside :)
Great job with the swimming. But I agree that it can be TOUGH with lots of non-swimmers swimming. For the girls with full-on makeup, I kick harder and splash. I know, I know - passive agressive. But come on. Seriously! For the old men - yep, they can be bad as well. I just smile and nod and push off the wall. :) Good luck! Keep up the great work!
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