FAT CYCLIST SUL NUOTO, UN ALTRO TRI-BOLATORE

COPIO INCOLLO DA FATCYCLIST.COM un altro iron ironico:

These are my findings.

• One mile is very far. On a road bike on flat ground, it takes me about three minutes to go a mile. On foot on flat ground, it takes me about nine minutes (at least for the first ten miles or so — after that it takes quite a bit longer). Swimming on flat ground, on the other hand, really chafes my stomach. Ha ha! OK, honestly, it took about 35 or so minutes for me to swim a mile in the pool. Which leads me to wonder: is there any slower way in the world than swimming for a human to travel? Like, suppose a one-year-old had started crawling a mile and a breakdancer had started moonwalking a mile at the same time I had started swimming. I’m pretty sure I would have come in last, depending on how often the one year old stopped to eat some dirt, and how many times the breakdancer paused grab his crotch.
• I love cheating. At the end of each length of the pool, I would compress my legs against the wall and push off, hard, underwater. I would shoot underwater like a torpedo a very great distance. This was, in fact, my very favorite part of the swim, and the only part that I would call “fun.” Which leads me to think that I’ll actually be just fine during the Ironman, as long as the reservoir has walls I can kick off every 50 feet or so.
• I have been injured. With cycling, a fall can injure you very badly indeed. With running, your entire lower body is subject to fractures, sprains, and torn ASPCA ligaments. But with swimming, I thought that at least you can’t get injured as easily as you can with the other two events. Boy, was I wrong. Here’s what happened: After being in the pool for 28 laps, I was so incredibly bored that I wanted something — anything — to alleviate the boredom. So I intentionally poked out my left eye. The pain was intense, but it was in fact an improvement over what I had been experiencing up to that point.
• Swimming is Soma. I confess that I am middle aged and that my memory is not what it used to be. However, until yesterday I would have thought that I could at least remember a number for a minute. However, at least five times during my swim, I arrived at the beginning of a new lap and found that I could not remember whether I was starting lap X or X+1. In the interest of not rewarding my brain for its forgetfulness, I always chose X. So it’s quite possible — probable, even — that I swam quite a bit more than a mile.
• My massive quads are quite dense. While I am certain that my swimming form is admirable and darn close to perfect, I couldn’t help notice that my legs tend to sink a little bit. This was most noticeable when the tops of my feet started dragging on the bottom of the pool. I ascribe this to the fact that muscle is very dense — much denser than water. And so, with the magnificent quads that I have earned over the course of fifteen years, how could I help but have my lower body drag a little bit?
• The smell persists. No matter how long I showered and soaped and rinsed and soaped and scrubbed and rinsed, I smelled strongly of chlorine the rest of the night. I probably still do, but just can’t smell it myself anymore.
• The itch persists, too. Another really great thing about chlorine is how awesome it makes my skin feel. Specifically, it feels almost 20% less itchy than if I had rolled in poison sumac for twenty minutes.
• The exhaustion. Forty minutes of swimming left me completely cooked. Wiped out. Beat. Knackered, even. Frankly, until yesterday, I would have thought I am currently in good enough shape that 40 minutes of anythingwouldn’t be that big of a deal. Wrong.

I can hardly wait to go swimming again tomorrow!