Meters swam freestyle continuously: 62.5
Age of ugly Speedo swimsuit: 6 years.
So Slo Jo and I are doing a triathlon! Yay for more blog posts! As she reported, I was quite enthusiastic about her awesome idea to do a tri. But she did not quite report all our conversation. After agreeing to pretty much everything she suggested, I threw a major caveat: "All that sounds great! BUT I REFUSE TO SWIM IN TEMPE TOWN LAKE!" For you non-Phoenicians, Tempe Town Lake is where most of the Phoenix-based triathlons (the longer ones, anyway) hold their swims. It is also a warm, gross, cesspool of mystery waste and dead fish. I will get a lot of crap for writing that because many of my friends have ventured into it and lived. But I stand by my statement. I have a healthy and legitimate fear of nasty man-made lakes.
Ten years ago when I was about to graduate grad school, I was having a celebratory drink with my friend, Reverend Jen. A couple of glasses of wine into the evening, Rev. Jen and I decided it would be fun to do a triathlon. At that point in my life, I'd played a lot of hockey and logged many hours on the elliptical, but the farthest I'd ever run was likely a 5K. It sounded ridiculously impossible and dangerous to do even a sprint triathlon. So I agreed! We selected the Las Vegas triathlon that fall and spent the summer training (while also studying for certification exams for our chosen profession). I bought a training book, which included a training journal. We'd meet to swim several times a week and then would bike and run on other days. After our workouts, we'd hang out at a coffee shop and study all day. I'm not joking when I say it was among the best summers of my life. It was also the summer I realized I am not a good freestyle swimmer. Growing up in the Midwest, it was only warm enough to swim for a couple months of the year. But I spent those entire months in the pool. Every August, I'd head back to school with chlorine-green hair. I took swim lessons, diving lessons, and swam on the swim team.
But that was several years before college. My body still knew how to do the strokes, but not very efficiently. My breathing was an especially big problem. I'd be good for a lap or so, but then I'd inhale a drop of water or 20, gasp, panic, and everything would fall apart. The lone exception is the breast stroke. I can breast stroke forever. I'm not fast, but I'm strong. If I was somehow shipwrecked a mile offshore, barring any adverse animal encounter, I'm confident I could breaststroke my way to dry land. So when it came time to do the triathlon, I breast stroked. But did I mention the triathlon was in Lake Mead? No? Well, it was. And Lake Mead is also a man-made cesspool (something about deserts and lakes just does not go together). For the first half of the (400 meter) swim, I refused to put my head under the brown, cloudy, smelly water. But I ultimately decided I did not put on my super-flattering pink swim cap for nothing. So I dipped my head under for the last 200 meters. I don't know if I'm just unusually gape-y, but I always get water in my mouth when I swim. And this was no exception. The rest of the tri itself was uneventful. I finished triumphantly and celebrated with many flavored coffee and pastry calories at Starbucks. Within a couple hours, though, my throat was raw. That night, I lost the ability to swallow anything but the teensiest bit of water and my temperature skyrocketed. I was sicker than I had been in recent memory. So sick I actually went to the doctor after a couple days. They ran a strep culture and even tested me for mono. No dice. They never could actually figure out what was wrong with me. They vaguely told me it was some mystery virus. After about a week, it went away. But I knew the truth. Lake Mead's nastiness poisoned me. Thus my reluctance to jump into Tempe Town Lake.
While SJ is researching clean-water triathlons for her prissy friend, the temperature in Phoenix is skyrocketing. I spent the weekend up in the mountains. The high was 90. I went for a run in 85-degree weather (which, frankly, was a bit hot in light of the sun and altitude). Then I returned to Phoenix and -- because my dinner recipe called for it -- turned on my broiler to broil shrimp. This made my kitchen only marginally cooler than the 110 degrees my car reported it being outside. So after dinner, I decided: what better time to see if I can still swim? I dug my ancient Speedo one-piece out of my underwear drawer. The elastic still held, so I borrowed Daughter #1's goggles and drove to the pool. The pool is only .2 miles away, but did you read the part about 110 degrees? Yeah.
It was okay. There is a 25 meter lap pool in my neighborhood. I jumped in and swam one lap freestyle. Then I breast stroked lap 2. I continued alternating for most my swim. Then on lap 17, I decided to see if I could make my last 4 laps freestyle. Nope. I made it through lap 17, 18, and half of 19. Then my lungs felt like they were going to explode. Breast stroke it is. It just allows for such wonderful access to oxygen! I swam 20 laps, which should be 500 meters. I think it might have been more because I had to repeatedly dodge a group of 12 year old boys who have no awareness of people trying to swim laps in a a lap pool. It took me about 20 minutes and I felt a delicious burn in my back muscles/rear deltoids. Hmmm . . . this might balance out all the pec/tricep work I do at boxing! Upon returning home I recapped my workout for Slo Jo via text: "Swam 500 meters. Did not drown." That about sums it up. Nothing to write home about, but it's a good start. And so what? I might have to breast stroke my triathlon. I'm sure worse things have happened. (And I trust our dear readers to inform me if this is some serious breach of triathlon etiquette.) Now I've got a nice glass of bubbly calling my name. Cheers!
