minor fraud

I’m going to blame the lifeguard.

Way back in the day, when I first started swimming, I asked the lifeguard on duty how many laps to the mile.  They told me 36 and since the olympic sized pool was configured for lanes across the pool – instead of the length – I figured that was the number to shoot for.  

I worked my way up to that and eventually could do it without too much trouble.  From there, I used 36 as the basis for my mile and could do another 18 (½ mile) if I was feeling my oats.  (Literally, oatmeal 30 minutes before swimming is the way to go.) 

Even, occasionally, doing 72 laps – 2 miles – if I had enough time and had eaten properly.  And each lap was recorded in a spreadsheet with a formula to calculate the number of miles I’d done in a year.

A couple of weeks ago, I overheard two guys talking in the locker-room – one confirming that the other had done 36 laps and then congratulating him on the half mile. 

Uh-oh.

I looked it up when I got home and sure enough, 36 of the “long” laps in an olympic pool is a mile.  Instead of doing all those miles – and then bragging about it – I was only going half as far.

I’m literally half as good of a swimmer as I thought I was. 

Disheartened, I took a week off from swimming.  Tomorrow, I’ll start again and though I’ll still do 36 laps and still record them – I’ve gotten rid of the formula to turn those laps into miles.

The important bit is that swimming has made me stronger and improved my stamina.  And these shoulders?  Epic – at least for me.

And for everyone that knew better when I talked about my laps and didn’t tell me – thank you.  For a while there, I was feeling pretty amazing.

Half as amazing now, but I still rock that speedo.