Inaugural Swim

I am officially back in the pool.

*sigh of relief*

The first of my getting back into the swing of things workouts are always the hardest, not because they are physically challenging (which they are), but because I don't like not knowing the routine at a new place, or having a route mapped out, or knowing the people/protocol/procedures.

My mentor, Erin (who is awesome), met me today at the Campbell Community Center pool for a midday swim. She is writing her dissertation for a PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford (I think she might be kinda smart) so has some time midday, like the myriad un- and semi-employed people in the area. We met outside the pool and paid our $7 to hop in. Four of the lanes in the 8-lane pool were marked, the center two lanes were marked "fast," the two immediately outside of those were marked "medium." The rest, I assume, were for the slow people, but to avoid offending them those lanes were left ummarked. Of course, as Erin and I readied ourselves for the hop in the water, the slow and medium lanes filled up, and one person hopped into one of the fast lanes.

If you know anything about my swimming history, you know I am a stickler for the unspoken "rules" of swimming. These include accurately estimating your speed so you don't hop into a lane and disrupt the faster swimmers. As one of the usually faster swimmers, I can vouch for how annoying that is. Since I was new to this pool, and out of shape!, I wasn't sure if I "qualified" for the fast lane.

My other issue is that (a) I have gained a little weight, and it appears to have settled into my hips, so with a swimsuit on the top half of me looks kind of sleek and healthy, and then there's this awesome explosion of hip out the bottom of my suit. It's kind of like a little hip shelf. Sexy. And (b) I have this awesome rash. I had a job interview last week (don't get too excited, it is super competitive and I'm not sure I did so well, but there was no feedback at all so it's hard to tell - I should know within a week or so whether I make it to the next round of interviews. Yes, there are two rounds of interviews! Ugh!), and the pants I wore apparently caused this nasty allergic reaction, and everywhere the pants were creased against my skin while I was sitting (back of my knees, hip creases) turned purple and blistered. It's been a week and I just now have smooth, albeit discolored, skin. So I had to warn Erin that what looked like burn marks were really just a bad reaction to some weird rayon blend. I'm throwing those pants away (or getting them re-lined, I haven't decided yet). Anyway...

We hopped in the fast lane and decided to just deal with attitude if presented. I decided to go 1000 yards, a nice easy distance to get back into the swing of things. Thankfully, we weren't too outmatched for the fast lane. The only issue was another woman asking me "where you girls usually swim," to which I replied "I don't." The woman then told us she thought maybe we swam at the Camden pool, and that there was a rumor the pool was closing, so they didn't know it would affect the midday swims at the Campbell pool.

After she pushed off the wall, Erin and I tried to decide whether she was being friendly or whether that was a "get the f! out of our pool" comment. Then we swam away and passed her, so I didn't worry about it too much.

My workout was simple: 400 warm-up, 200 yards, 100 yards, and 4 x 50 yards, and 100 warm down. Then into the showers and to the new Rubio's that opened up around the corner for some "street tacos." Yum! A good day so far!