Outswum

Today was not a good swimming day. Oh, don't get me wrong, I am very pleased with myself for having got there, it still being school holidays: and it might have possibly used up about a quarter of the calories consumed with that yummy chocolate brownie at lunch. But in terms of TRAINING, you know, getting fitter and maybe one day able to swim that 1km in the sea, it was pretty dispiriting.
For one thing, I have managed to commit the idiotic act of buying a swimhat to keep my hair dry. Somehow, I chose the one made of Lycra. Not my finest hour. I am not sure what the point of a lycra swimming cap is, but it certainly ain't to keep my head dry. Furthermore, I had to deal with silly thoughts in my head such as "it's the school holidays! I can't exercise properly today, I'm exhausted from having looked after the children!" Well, the last bit is true. I kept finding myself thinking "oh my goodness the zoo trip was tiring" when I should have been focusing on how many lengths I'd done. Never mind, I thought, just keep going and you'll get in the mood eventually.
Which would probably have happened if it hadn't been for YellowHattedSuperSwimmer in my lane. Who really, really, really, managed to ruin my day.

First of all, what is a superswimmer doing in the medium lane anyway? She was swimming at about twice the pace of everyone else, overtaking ostentatiously and splashing water as she did so. Was this some kind of point she was trying to make: "Oh, you think this is fast? Wait and see what I'd be doing if I was TRYING to swim at anything like my maximum speed."

Second of all, she clearly had the stamina of a, um, an animal that has a lot of stamina. Maybe a camel. (She certainly had the face for one). She swam lengths the way the rest of us swam metres: she was fast AND she was able to go on for longer than any of us. Oh, and she was really old-looking too, which made it worse. Outswum by Duracell Granny. And did I mention that she kept kicking water in my face?

Third of all, she could do these supercool flip turn things like they do in the Olympics. I found this profoundly irritating. After all, isn't the POINT of finishing a length to hang onto the side for a bit, breathe deeply and regain some composure? Do we really have to slap headfirst into the wall, leap off again like an elastic band and carry on? Where's the slowing-down-and-not-exercising potential in that? AND she had a proper swimming cap made of silicon.

Oh, I didn't like her one bit at all. But there will be more like her in coming weeks. The thing is, it's soon going to be the Harbour Crossing, an ocean swim of 2.8km that I would absolutely love to do if I was as tenacious and effective in the water as I am fond of eating cake. They will all be there in the pool in the next eight weeks, zipping up and down and splashing water in my face. And I know the reason I was so irritated by YellowHatSuperWoman, it is because I am so jealous. I would LOVE to be her, zipping up and down the pool as if it was easy. Sometimes she put things on her hands and swam with them - I would like to hope they were flippers, making it easier, but actually they were probably weights. Because she is Superswimmer. As opposed to me. I am more of a Flopper.

But what I really want, I decided today whilst I trailed in her wake forlornly, is my own body back, not anybody else's. Three pregnancies, seven years of running after small children. I don't really feel as if my body belongs to me any more. It is lumpy in all the wrong places and it aches when I do anything more adventurous than walk across the room. I am carrying extra weight, the equivalent of two 10kg bags of potatoes: I can't feel it but it can't be healthy. Even a lycra swimsuit isn't going to put that right. Put in those terms, getting fit again feels like an impossible task. Frustrating as it is to be outswum by Duracell Granny, she's not my enemy. If I have one, it's the too-unhealthy-to-change feelings that swim through my head from time to time. Against that, a strong pulse of "I want my body back! I want to feel like ME again!" No, I don't want to be SuperswimmerYellowHat. Even if she has swum for two hours a day for twenty years. But I would like to feel a bit more like me.

Oh, and I want a swimming cap that keeps my hair dry, too.