Doggy Paddle

This morning I woke up feeling quite nauseous and immediately told my stomach I would have to go to fisticuffs with it should it hinder me from jumping in the pool today. Luckily I still have some intimidation skills because after a couple hours I was feeling great and headed off to LA Fitness.

It’s the first time I had been in a bathing suit since the surgery and I have to say that seeing the scar exposed on my right leg was a little scary. I decided that I would strut (or as close to it as I could get with a crutch) out onto the pool deck with pride because as I’ve heard many times before…I earned this scar darn it. :)

The pool was only occupied by two swimmers and judging from their lack of water bottles they were just weight lifters and not the dreaded triathletes I wanted to avoid (they make me look bad). It only took me a couple minutes to figure out how to get in the water…I had to use a highly technical maneuver…cannonball. Just kidding…lowering myself into the water by the ladder proved to be quite easy.

I started out with the goal to do 400m (16 laps). I was a little worried as I haven’t swam in almost a year and my body feels quite weak right now. Turns out I had little to worry about as all the crutching had significantly strengthened my arms. The guys in the pool were a bit surprised when I started swimming past them and quickly picked up their pace. My competitive nature must have gotten to me because I instinctively did a flip turn at the wall without even thinking…not a good start. I was in the lead though! ;)

After the first 400m I decided…what’s another 16 laps…I mine as well do 800m today. At 32 laps I realized I still wasn’t getting tired so I started doing IM’s and that took me to 1200m. Of course once I hit that I decided that I was too close to a mile to stop so I just kept going. It helped that a ‘trisports’ waterbottle showed up in the lane next to me and I wasn’t going to let him get the best of me. ;)

So now that I have the first mile under my belt I’m excited to go back. I didn’t use my legs at all this time because I was a little nervous after my botched flip turn, but I’m hoping next time I will be able to at least start with a little flutter kick.