Back in the swim of things

Yes, I said swim.  And golly gee, I meant it.

So I began swimming again after a very long hiatus from my beloved activity.  This has been wonderful and horrible at the same time.  If you read post about being fat, weak and out of shape, you know why.  (That's why.  Cuz I'm fat, weak and out of shape.)

The wonderful part is being able to be back in the pool again.  The feel of being underwater and to be moving and doing an IM set (although after about 1 length of fly I'm quite reverting to a one-arm fly manouver), a kick set or anything else.  For the love of being chlorinated!  Oh joy!  (And as a side note, some people ask me - because of my crazy list of things I do not do or eat or use - if I have a horrible problem with chlorine and being subjected to the yuck of it.  The short answer is, "NO WAY, I LOVE SMELLING LIKE CHLORINE!!"  I am sorry.  I know it doesn't make any sense.  But it's just the truth.  File it under my vice.)

But the horror of it all is how disgustingly slow I have become from being out of practice.  Times that I would make sets on with piles and buckets of rest left over are now the times I'm pulling in and hitting the wall.  The regular 4x250's are becoming one slow straight 1000, flipturning those breaks right out.

Now for being as bad as it is, there is one plus.  Most of my swimmer peeps do outdoor swimming in the summer at the meter pools.  I don't.  I just stick with my good ol' pool.  What this means for this situation is that I can come back to normalcy without many people noticing since most of them will see me when they return in the fall and by then I'll be nearly back to normal.

But.

BUT!

Oh sad.

The few people I do swim with are nice friends who care about me and are wonderful swimmers and know where I was and what I used to be when I was in shape.  They know that my current horror is due to my long pool absence.

HOWEVER.

Oh my goodness, this is so sad.  So there's this woman there at the pool.  She never swims with us.  She is good enough to do so, she just chooses not to and does her own workout instead.  She is a triathlete also and you can tell by looking at her that she is.  She is very fit.

But.

Last week she decided to swim with us.

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't get it, it is because you a) don't know me or b) have no shred of being competitive anywhere in any scrap of your entire being.

The sad: today she swam in the lane NEXT TO ME.  Oh poopers.  I am this slug plopping along the lane and she is tearing it up.  Now I have to say, just because I am such a cow, that the bad part is I have looked over before and seen her swimming and I used to beat her no problema.  And now.  And NOW!

She is passing me along like I am a granny doing sidestroke at the motel.

You can't really explain!  You can't say, "So eh, yeah, I am extremely fat, weak and out of shape right now (*cough*whichiswhyyou'rebeatingme*cough*), but uh, yeah, I uh, used to be a lot faster, um..."

Yeah, no.  You can think it in your head, but you can't get away with it gracefully.  Stinks.  She was RIGHT THERE.

Oh, argh.

I'll get you next time, Gadget, next time!

Peace, love and when will then be now,
Ms. Daisy