Special Needs

Last night I attended my first master's swim class at the AF Rec Center. I figured it was a cheap way to get some coaching - which would hopefully keep me motivated and help improve my form. After all, it's only 25 bucks per month - you read right - per month. The tri-geek in me has justified much larger outlays that even at their best had questionable benefits. So, I finally dragged myself to the pool, overcoming my self-consciousness and just getting to it. There were three groups swimming - a group of collegiate level swimmers (I know because one of the girls just finished at BYU, where she was on the team), a group of intermediates, and all the rest. At first, the coach put me in the slow lane. Where I belonged. After we warmed up he moved me to the middle lane. At first, I thought it was because he thought I was fast enough to hang with them. Not so much. He put me there because there was no chance of me screwing up the swim order with the other two swimmers in my lane, especially since we were only swimming fifties. 30 of them. Hard. It was awful. I felt like that guy who showed up to a group road ride on a mountain bike. You know the guy. And like the fellow on fat tires with a flapping T-shirt and a bottle of root beer in his cage, I suffered mightily just to keep up. I made all the splits within the times, but not without pain. And then, to keep things interesting, after 2000+ yards of high effort swimming (not fast, just painful), we did a 100 yard test swim. Nice. One of the guys there wearing baggy board shorts swam the same time I did. He complimented me on a nice job and then asked why, since I was the new guy, I decided to start the class. I told him that the swim is my weakest portion and the one I could really only get better at with some help. After asking with amazement if I did triathlons, he commented that I was doing pretty well, for a first timer. Yeah, thanks. Now I'm getting my ass kicked by the guy on the mountain bike as well. The next step is to get humbled by an old guy on an adult-sized trike. Perfect.