25 May, 2007
IT’S CALLED A “LAP SWIM” FOR A REASON PEOPLE (and this was supposed to be fun!)
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Misc. life
It started out pretty well. I didn’t have too much trouble getting out of bed even though it was a full hour earlier than the usual time.
The walk was splendid, peaceful, tranquil, full of the sounds of chirping birds. I had the street to myself. It was my own private Idaho.
Pool entry was uneventful. There was no one at the desk to take my money. I walked right in. (I paid afterwards.) Since it was an early morning lap swim I didn’t think there’d be too many people in the pool. Wow! This was going to be great!
I changed, got in the water (this is one of Ottawa’s warmer pools), and started swimming. I love the feeling of the churning water, slicing through it with my body, the sound of my breathing. It felt really good, at least it did for those first four laps. And then I started to get tired.
Goddammit, this isn’t fun, this is EXERCISE!
I huffed and puffed. Boy am I in bad shape. I switched between freestyle (aka front crawl) and the breaststroke. Freestyle is the harder of the two for me, so I did many laps of breaststroke in between little sprints.
After awhile my back started hurting (my skills have oh so degenerated since my swimming heyday) and so I switched to backstroke. I swam two thirds of the way across the length of the pool when I decided I should see if there was anyone coming. Whoops! There was, but I stopped in time. She grimaced as I swam a wide arc to get around her. That was it. No one was hurt OR DAMAGED IN ANY WAY.
I completed that lap, and then another one, and took a breather in the shallow end. And that’s when I saw the lifeguard approaching. She was smiling, so it couldn’t be anything bad, could it?
She leaned over to speak to me.
“Would you mind swimming over there,” she said, pointing to the other lane. (There are two lanes in this pool.)
I must have looked puzzled.
“The ladies don’t like the splashing and they don’t want to get their hair wet,” she said.
“But this is a swimming pool,” I said.
The lifeguard gave me a sympathetic look. And walked away.
I know who it was. It was the lady I almost ran into. My swim had officially stopped being fun. I switched lanes, and did a furious set of laps. And a couple more. I was so ticked. I didn’t care how much water I stirred up. And then I got out.
I think I need to get myself one of these.