Monday, March 10, 2008

Crowded Swim

The FOMC pool didn't have any more cars in the parking lot than normal, but my good gracious. All the pools were full! I was shocked to see 3 people each in the fast lanes, and pissed to see one person doing a kick drill in one, and another doing slow breast stroke in the other. (And yes, he had 8 foot long arms, each.)

So I joined the lane that had the faster people in it, channeled Jenna really hard and tried to encourage the others to move to a more appropriate lane. I was back and forth, going at nearly top speed, passing where I could, touching toes a few times to remind people I was there, waiting for them. Nobody left. Sigh.

There are days I want there to be a swim lane Nazi, enforcing speeds and making people swim in the appropriate lane for the appropriate stroke. I want there to be a breast stroke lane, and about 8 people could be in it at once. I want there to be a kick lane, and about 16 people could be in it. I want there to be a giant hook that drags people by the neck out of the fast lane if they aren't keeping up and not being considerate about it. Just like the fairgrounds have a horizontal line that says "you must be this tall to go on this ride", I want to see a sign, "you must swim 50 m in less than a minute to swim in this lane." And it isn't like I think I should be the only one in the fast lane. I'll happily seed myself in the medium lane at Talisman, if I know that's what it is, or what the standard is for the fast lane.

1000 m 18:49. On one hand, if there hadn't been anybody else in the lane to get in my way, I could have swum it faster. On the other hand, without anyone there to pass or pull away from, it might have been a slower swim. On the gripping hand, what I had really wanted to do was 3 lengths easy, and one all out. Hard to do that when you're sharing a lane. Oh well, it was a good swim.

20 minutes core and flexibility work in the dive tank. This has really come a long way since I started. It used to be I could hardly get my toes out of the water doing a straight leg lift. Now I can get ankles and part of shins out. It used to be that in a sit pose trying to move legs around to the side, I could get to about 45 degrees, now I can get almost to the wall. The sit pose where I draw expanding then contracting circles with my toes, it used to be going around 3 times was enough, now I go around lots, and get my toes out of the water, and the circles are really big. I even do figure 8's sometimes.I was thinking about planks, and was working on some of the side ab muscles.

I'm going to hustle out of work this afternoon and try to get in an outside ride on my hybrid. Soooo nice today, it's supposed to be into the teens.

2 comments:

  1. i used to laugh at the 'slow' lane at thornhill pool because that was the lane the LODs would walk in with their noodles wrapped around their waist, haha.

    still an awesome time for 1000m!

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  2. Oh, it is times like that I am so glad I live in a small town. I'm usually the only one in the pool.If there are other swimmers, it is RARE to have to actually share a lane.

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