I Am a Spoiled Swimmer (or, Adventures in Gym Swimming)

For all the years I have been swimming, I've never really thought much of my pool situations.  For eight summers I swam once or twice a day with my summer league team at a nearby neighborhood pool.  For four years of high school, I swam five afternoons a week, four months a year, in the Olympic-sized aquatics center downtown.   From August through last week, I swam at that same aquatics center up to three times a week, and those were glorious swims.  I never had to share a lane, never lacked equipment, never had any problems. And apparently I shouldn't have been taking that for granted.

I recently got a job in a different city and moved into my new apartment last week.  My apartment had a deal where I could get a free month trial at the gym right down the road, and they have a pool so I figured I would try it out until I can find another pool that is convenient to home and work.  I don't know if it was just today, but there's a good chance I may be having to find another pool sooner than I expected.

When I got there and saw that it was only three lanes, I was a little apprehensive, but I blew it off.  Not every pool is going to have sixteen lanes like I'm used to, I could deal with that.  I thought I was going to have to share a lane, but in the time it took me to stretch one of the lanes cleared out, so I was good on that one.  However, my stretching time also made me realize two other things- first, the pool was in the same enclosed area as the spa so it was grossly steamy and hot, and second, that there was no box of equipment.  I have my own goggles, cap and fins, but I never bothered to buy a pull buoy or kickboard because my aquatics center always had plenty of them in their equipment box.

I was annoyed, but I could deal with this.  I looked through the workouts I had and picked one that didn't have lots of kick and pull sets and figured I would either remove the ones it did have or change them up.  With that settled, I jumped into the empty center lane and things went south from there.  I immediately realized two things-  the pool was only three feet deep all the way across and it was salt water.  I could deal with the depth, but the salt water is something I've never really had a chance to get used to.  I've always swam in chlorinated pools with the exception of a few summer league away meets.  It was really unpleasant at first and I found myself drinking twice as often from my water bottle (which overall probably isn't a bad thing) to get the taste out of my mouth. Maybe it's something I'll get used to over time, or maybe all the pools here are salt water and I'll be forced to learn to deal with it.  Regardless, it didn't make my experience any better.

While swimming my warm-up, I realized the biggest difference between an aquatics center and a pool at a gym- aquatics centers are for swimmers, and gym pools are for people who want to swim.  I don't want to step on any toes or insult anyone, and I know I'm not the world's greatest swimmer either.  Normally I look like an old lady stuck swimming in a pool of Michael Phelpses.  But today, I was the Michael Phelps in a pool of old ladies.  I really don't want to downplay anyone's swimming efforts, because it's a great way to exercise, but these people's strokes were all over the place.  They were kicking wildly and out of rhythm and splashing all over the place.  The small width probably made this more prevalent, but I felt more like I was in a wave pool than a swimming pool.  I normally pride myself on having a really even stroke count, especially when I'm swimming 200 or more yards at a time, but today I had a different stroke count every single length.  It was so annoying to me that I ended up cutting out almost half of my workout and leaving after less than an hour.

It could have just been the time of day, or it could have been those particular people.  I could end up getting used to all of these different factors over the next month, or I could end up going out of my way just so I can have all the luxuries I'm used to at an aquatics center.  Whatever the case, I definitely learned something about myself today- I am a spoiled swimmer.

Across the Internet: Ryan Lochte, Catching Fire, and The Winds of Winter

The past couple of days have brought some exciting things in the world of the internet, so I'm going to talk about them, because that's the point of me having a blog!

The long saga of Ryan Lochte getting a reality show has finally come to fruition- E! announced on Tuesday at the TCAs that they will be airing a six-episode reality show starting in April titled What Would Ryan Lochte Do?.  I've heard a lot of people making negative comments about the show, saying it's going to be awful and it's going to be a complete failure and paint Ryan in a bad light.  However, I'm of the opposite frame of mind.  

First of all, when has reality television ever painted someone in a good light?  Reality TV is about vaguely scripted drama and generally always makes people think the subjects are idiots.  You don't watch reality television for hard hitting stuff, you watch it because it's hilariously ridiculous and entertaining.  And if Ryan Lochte is trying to pick up girls in front of a camera, I'm pretty sure it will be both ridiculous and entertaining.

It's also going to be a huge promotional boost for the sport of swimming itself- with World Championships in Barcelona this summer, what better way to get people excited for it than a reality show on national television airing a couple months before the championships themselves? People love watching swimming during the Olympics, it would be great if the general public would show the same enthusiasm for the sport during another event.  I'll watch Worlds regardless, but if the show can bring in more fans to the sport, I'm not going to complain.

Top Moments in 2012- #4: Meeting Famous People

This seems like a really silly thing to have as a top moment, but the thing is, before this year I'd never really met or seen any famous people.  I've been to concerts over the years, and there was a brief moment when MGMT was performing "Kids" and I'm 99.9% positive Andrew Vanwyngarden and I made eye contact, and Usher made a surprise appearance at my freshman orientation, and I've taken pictures with Major League Soccer players, but other than that, nothing.  And in 2012, I had several celebrity encounters, so I was pretty pleased with that.

My 2012 End-of-Year lists

I decided to make some lists to sort of sum up 2012.  Shows with stars next to them indicate favorites that I would highly recommend!

Happy birthday, Dixie!

Fourteen years ago, on December 30th, 1998, in Savannah, my dog Dixie, a West Highland White Terrier, was born.  My parents brought her home on February 26th, 1999, and since that day our lives have been so much better.

Top Moments in 2012- #5: Getting Back in the Pool

Since I started college, I had been gaining weight.  The only thing mythical about the Freshman Fifteen is that you only gain it freshman year.  Back in the summer of 2010, I did Weight Watchers for a little bit, and managed to lose 15 pounds, but when I went back to school in the fall I gained it right back.  I won't go into specifics, but let's just say that I weigh more than I would like to weigh.  The worst part is that I'm pretty lazy when it comes to working out, especially since I hate running, so I never really had a routine for going to the gym or anything.

After the Olympics this summer, though, that changed.  Watching all of the swimming events reminded me of how much fun I used to have swimming and how much I used to love just being in the water in general.  So I decided that a great way for me to start losing weight and getting back into shape would be for me to get back into the pool again.

I started swimming when I was ten years old, when the neighborhood pool we were members of started a swim team, so I was a founding member of the Rivershyre Tiger Sharks.  I loved swimming in general, and being able to swim competitively just made it even better.  Unfortunately, I was never very fast- I got last or second to last in almost everything, but I always loved going to the pool and going to practice and just being in the pool in general.  I had already basically chosen club soccer over club swimming at this point, so I was just swimming in the summer and the kids who were swimming year-round were getting so much better than me, but I didn't really care that much.

By the time I got to high school and started swimming there, the 2004 Olympics had happened and I had a Michael Phelps poster that I'd gotten at a meet that summer hanging up on my wall and despite the fact that I loved soccer, swimming was my favorite sport to actually do.  I loved being in the water- it was a great way for me to take my mind off everything else and just relax in the pool.  I kept it up all through high school and was a co-captain my senior year.

I went to the first meeting of the swim club my freshman year at Georgia Tech, but I didn't want to make time to go to practices at night, so I just never went back.  Looking back now, I wish I had, because not only would I have been able to stay in better shape during college, but I would have made some more swimming friends too.

So when I was inspired to get back in the pool after the Olympics in August, it was the first time I had been in the pool in over four years.  I started out slow, using some of the beginners Speedo Pace Club workouts of around 1000 yards.  I kept gradually bumping up my yardage until I was doing a mile or more every time I was going to the pool, which was one to three times a week, depending on how I was feeling.

After Thanksgiving, I decided I wanted to kick it up another notch, since I knew I would be eating more and the main reason I had gotten back in the pool in the first place was to lose weight.  With my dieting and swimming combined, I've lost 20 pounds so far.  I've been doing up to two miles now the past couple of times I've been to the pool, and even though I haven't been in a couple weeks due to being out of town and not feeling up to it, I'm excited to get back into the pool after Christmas and diving back into my swimming routine.

The Hobbit

On Thursday at midnight, the day I had been waiting so many years for finally came- I saw The Hobbit in theatres.  And not the creepy animated version, though I do own that- no, Peter Jackson had finally turned my favorite book into a movie, and he did it brilliantly.