Flowerpower

You'd think with all this cold water swimming that I'd be acclimated to cold in general.  Not so.  Everytime I go in to the locker room at SDRC its a little chilly.  When I take off my shirt its almost painful.  Then having been a lifeguard and understanding the importance of taking a shower before entering the water, I always take a shower.  Today's shower was EXTRA long.  It felt so good to just soak under the hot water.  My shower ended up being 15 minutes!  No wonder when I get in the 82 degree pool it feels a little cold.  I got to quit taking long showers: Just get your hair and suit wet and get in the pool!

Today about half way into it, the girl that I often end up getting paced by got in.  She's about 5'6" petite and you wouldn't think is a fast swimmer, but she always seems to push me.  She wears a hideous suit that is covered in small flowers.  Then again, I'm sure she thinks the same thing about my Rob's Aquatic zebra striped "Banana Hammock".  Can I just say I hate that term?  It's just so damn graphic.  That'll be the only time I refer to it as something other than a speedo.

Anyhow, when "Flowerpower" took off her cap and was about to get out I was doing a flipturn so I stood up and said, "Excuse me.  Do you ever swim with Masters?"  She made a face like she knew what Masters was all about, but didn't like the idea.  "No."  I said, "How come?"  She shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know."  I said, "Well if you did, you'd be the fastest girl on the team.  You've swam competitively before right?"  She told me that she swam in college and that she's been back in the pool for only 6 months after taking 10 years off.  She said she's still trying to overcome being depressed about being slow.

For a fraction of a second I felt like a complete retard, cause in my opinion she's fast, and am feeling good when I'm able to keep her from gaining on me.  So I appended "compared to what you used to do right?"  She said "Yes."  I asked her "What event did you do?"  She said she was a distance freestyler.  So I asked "So the 1650? Right?  What was your best time."  She said she couldn't remember and looked like she was digging way back to remember what her times were.  She said "somewhere in 17 minutes".  I said "Wow!  That's amazing!".   Here I am with my PR at 20:39 for the 1650 and her PR (Granted it was in college) is under 18 minutes?  Very humbling.  It reminds me of the shirt I saw Marcia Cleveland wear at the OWSC.  It read "I swim like a girl.  Try to keep up!"  So true.

Today I had planned 12,000 yards, but ended up cutting it short cause I had some pretty stressful work conditions this last week and I wanted to not get in so late.    Here's what I ended up doing:

500 free

200 IM

1000 free

400 IM

2000 free

800 IM

2000 free

400 IM

1000 free

200 IM

500 free

100 IM sprint (1:18)

9100 yards total

Looking forward to meeting Josh and Goody at BL this afternoon for a cold water 1/2 mile swim.