Like Salt in the Snow

Remember when you were a kid and you'd go swimming or playing in the sprinklers, and then you'd come inside and stay in your swimsuit while you ate lunch and watched whatever movie or Ramona Quimby tape you had checked out from the library? You felt your skin getting tighter and tighter from the chlorine, your mom warning you that your hair was going to turn green, but you just didn't feel like putting forth the effort to shower and change back into normal clothes? Well that is the flashback I'm having right now. I just got back from the gym... half an hour ago. I'm still in my swimsuit, my hair still feels poolish, I just ate a yogurt, and I am listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
I know I need to hop into the shower, I just don't feel like it yet.
Here is another phenomenon the pool reminded me of today.
When I first started swim team I thought I was going to die. No, seriously, die. I realized that swimming lessons do not teach you how to swim, they teach you how to not drown in normal playing in the pool settings, but when it came to swimming lap after lap in a competitive atmosphere, drowning was imminent. So my first two ish weeks of swim team was filled with learning how to swim. The rest of the summer was spent with swimming. I was calculating today how many laps I'd swim each morning at practice. An Olympic size pool is 50m across, so one lap, from one end of the pool to the other is 100m. For warmups we'd have to do 800m of each stroke, four strokes=3200m. Then we'd do short races and contests etc. to check and test our times. So altogether, I'd say Mon.-Thurs. mornings I'd swim about 4000m all told. It was quite a work out, but after I learned how to swim properly I could handle it. Today however, I swam 2000m, about half of what I did in my childhood on swimteam, and my trash felt thoroughly kicked. Funny how sometimes you don't realize how in shape you are until you are no longer in that shape anymore, but perhaps in this instance, its the fact that I've been running, and I've heard that if you run its hard to swim as much; maybe that is a lie, but I will cling to it to excuse myself from my weaksauce swim today.
I want to do a swimming marathon. Fo sho, I'm going to look for one. I'll let you know. Anyone up for doing a triathalon with me? Someone who likes to run, you can do the running, I'll do the swimming, and we can split up the biking. Sound good? Good.
In a few short hours I'll be listening to Owl City, The Classic Crime and Relient K. I'm thoroughly excited for The Classic Crime. ( I like the other two bands, but about three months ago I determined that The Classic Crime would be the band I needed to see and it has finally come.)
Yesterday I got a free hour of LSAT tutoring. I feel a little better about the test on Monday, although I wouldn't want to stop William and Mary from admitting me before that... just putting that out there.
Sorry to keep bugging you all for your prayers on this, but I seriously can't do it alone. It means too much to me. So, pray for me please!

Comments

Ande said…
Your post just reminded me of my swim team days as well. Funny how you don't know you can't swim until you go to swim team and realize you can't breath, instead you swallow water and pray for the wall. My last year of swimming, when I started to take it not so seriously, our coach was in a wheelchair and we took full advantage of his limited visability and would hide out on the bottom of the pool in order to skip laps. What all of this is trying to say is...I feel your pain. You enjoy staying in the swimming suit (even though I'm sure its tight and uncomfortable as all swimming suits are) and just glory in the fact you swam a 2000...and didn't die.
Ande said…
Also consider yourself prayed for my friend.
trentathon said…
I want to do the biking and/or running. You are going to do just fine on the LSAT. I can feel it
Docface said…
Remember how you cried and cried to get me to sign you up for swim team, and then you cried because you didn't want to compete in the first meet? I wanted to kill you! But you did great and came in second in your first race!
Unknown said…
Thanks guys. The backstroke has always been my best stroke n'est pas?

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