Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Happy Canada day

Slightly drunk on expensive Canadian beer from Bacchus right now, so please disregard any spelling and/or grammatical errors...

Went swimming this afternoon up at Minnewaska - did my mile, with much less emotional hullaballoo than last year's first mile swim. There were two other swimmers also in the lake while I was doing my laps. They were swimming exclusively freestyle. They were swimming when I got there, and they were still swimming when I left, and they passed me at least three times. By my rough calculations, that means they swam at least two miles exclusively freestyle (plus whatever they'd swum before I got there and whatever they swam after I left). Granted, they were stopping to tread water for a minute or two after every length (1/8 of a mile), but still, wow. I know there's a triathlon in the 'gunks in September, maybe they were training for that. I keep thinking I'd like to train for that and take part in it some year, but I hate running, so realistically, it probably ain't gonna happen.

I'm kind of afraid of the swim-laps-for-hours-and-hours people. I see them coming up behind me with their synchronized strokes, and I feel like a little kid stuck in a corn field with grain threshers bearing down on him. I try to give them a wide berth. I kind of wish there were a standard rule of thumb for where the faster swimmers should swim, but some of them seem to like to stick to the rope, and some of them stay further out. It makes it impossible for us slower swimmers to know how best to stay out of their way.

4 comments:

NoRegrets said...

I could never do a triathon. I'd either be killed in the water, or kill.

Squirrel said...

Funny... the swimming would be your issue, running would be mine. I have a friend who's doing a triathlon this weekend; she said biking was her weak spot. I guess everyone's got something... maybe I should throw caution to the wind and just start training.

NoRegrets said...

Or, you can do a relay one. That way everyone does what is his/her strength.

Squirrel said...

Are there relay triathlons? Whether or not, I like your thinking. Prepare to get tapped for running if I ever make good on this cockamamie scheme. :)