Death Swim

So swimming is sometimes a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it to not die. The college pool is pretty much closed for the summer and that's a problem because I need to practice swimming. I thought to myself "Hey there's a new lake on Leigh Hill and I need to learn to swim in open water. I'll swim there and knock out two birds with one stone!"

...I soon realized the incapacitating and crippling effects cold water has on your muscles. I had seen people in speedos jump off glaciers into arctic water before on TV. I think it was on like a Claratin or Visine commercial. They make it look so easy! I probably swam about 50m before I felt like Crabbe and Goyle after they'd been drugged with a sleeping draught cleverly put in chocolate cake by Hermione. After another 75m and I was exactly half way between shorelines, completely frozen and immobilized. I was forced to start treading water. It didn't make a difference if I kept swimming or turned back I knew I wasn't going to make it without extreme difficulty...if I could make it back at all.

Things were looking bleak to say the least.

(Please pause to form a mental image of me in the middle of the lake. Here are a couple of things you can put in your mental image: dark storm clouds looming, me dipping below the water slightly due to lack of endurance or constitution, winds picking up, sharks circling below, large waves are popular, also lightening could be involved.)

Are there tears in your eyes because you're scared for me yet? This is how I felt. As I tread water I turned to find that I had swam off course and was about 25 feet from shore where everyone was staring at this idiot who had attempted (and failed) at swimming across the lake. This wasn't a normal crowd of people either. It was "Rent-A-Free-Kayak-At-The-Lake-Day" where there was a radio station broadcasting as well as several business who had set up tents giving away free stuff. So there were tons of people with their kids on shore enjoying the lake and I had caught the attention of most of them...and there was a 12 year old about 15 feet from me (staring at me)(I could practically stand up where I had stopped)...and there were about 20 kayaks on the lake and three of them had started paddling slowly towards me in case something happened (also staring at me).

Is embarrassed too strong a word?

This week was still a sub par week to be honest with an average sized run and a good sized bike ride. Special shout out to my friend K.T. for letting my borrow his nice mountain bike for my ride, even though it's WAY too big for me. I started a job at the school this week. I think I'm going to have to start working out in the mornings...bleh. Well there's more I could talk about but the swimming story was the best one. I'm going to start posting bi-weekly so I can share all the awesomely awful things that happen to me as I try to turn myself into an athlete. The song from Mulan "I'll Make a Man Out of You" just got stuck in my head...