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.