There's A Bear On My Back, And He's Carrying A Piano

First week back in the water after winter break feels good, but I'm not so sure I look so great thrashing up and down the pool.  I'm glad I can't see myself.  Feeling out of shape is bad enough. It takes about two weeks, maybe three, to regain fitness for every week taken off, which seems to go against all the laws of physics and nature, but that's the way it is.  Take a break, pay for it later.

The pool is an old one and needs replacement.  Eight lanes, 25 yards, deep at one end.  That's it.  The poor old thing was damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake that occurred in 1989.  Coaches and pool equipment bounced up and down for the 18 seconds or so that the earth rumbled, and patches of plaster and tiles were chipped and crunched.  They have not yet been fully repaired in all this time.  The college campus has been enjoying a gradual refurbishment over the past few years.  Unfortunately the pool is almost the last bit of the college to be replaced or upgraded.  The locker rooms are grim and cold, but we are not complaining too loudly.  We get to swim; that's the main thing.

The phrase "swim" is very subjective, I've found.  Swimmers at our pool range from floppers who barely move and somehow take up an entire lane all by themselves to fitness hounds who cross train in other sports every day, rain or shine, to swimmers heading to Junior Olympics and beyond.

There are no shortage of goals to work toward, and the amazing thing is muscles respond to stress by getting stronger no matter how old you are.  I have set a few personal goals for the first six months, and even after just one week, I feel less like a bear has jumped on my back and more like I am actually getting somewhere.  The bear is always ready to jump on, and sometimes he's carrying a piano.  If you're not a swimmer, equate that to running uphill in loose sand.  Swimmers know exactly what I mean and dread the feeling when it comes over them.  

As for competition, I don't know what will turn up on the horizon, but I'm looking around for something interesting to challenge myself with.  Hawaii?  Maybe.  California?  More likely.  But...that's the fun of it.  Swimmers comprise a big tribe and they swim in lots of different places and kinds of water.  If you know of a moderate open-water swim, drop me a line and I'll take it into consideration.  One possibility I've toyed with is an open-water series in Fiji that I read about online.  Who knows....