I have been swimming for two hours. I touch the poolside, and pause for my fourth 30-second break. Take a drink. 10 seconds gone. Rest my head on the pool deck briefly, 20 seconds gone. Take a couple of deep breaths. Time to go. I am halfway through the session.
FACT: really long sessions in the pool are mind-bendingly, soul-crushingly, will-someone-please-do-me-a-kindness-and-shoot-me-now boring. Actually most of my pool swims incorporate lots of intervals (which is sporty-speak for stopping then starting again just when you've reached the optimal moment of feeling utterly ******d), but once a week I need to get used to just swimming steadily for. a. long. time. At the moment this is around 10 or 12k, which for someone who can, you know... swim, would take a bit less time, but for me is somewhere between 3 and 4 hours.
“I think I can see a silhouette of Donald Trump, like the Queen’s head on a postage stamp. Or is it Jeremy Corbyn?”
Things I think about during a long pool session:
- Count my lengths
- Lose count. Snatch looks at the pace clock and try and do some mental arithmetic to figure it out.
- Give up trying to figure it out. Err on the side of pessimism and subtract a length from my total.
- Get annoyed with the guy doing drills who keeps slowing me down. He's wearing a fancy wetsuit. Must be a triathlete.
- Wonder how much of an annoyance I am to the people I am slowing down.
- Feel some pain in my left shoulder.
- Worry about that for a bit
- Think about what I'll eat when I'm finished (I do this a lot)
- Count my lengths
- Repeat 2 and 3
Last 30 minutes. My vision starts to blur. The lines between the tiles are starting to play tricks on me, like those weird pixel cluster images that go 3D when you squint at them. I think I can see a silhouette of Donald Trump, like the Queen's head on a postage stamp. Or is it Jeremy Corbyn?
Time to get out.