Beat Old Man Swimming

Two or three times a week I head up to LifeTime Fitness to go for a swim. Swimming has been a great workout to compliment all of the exercises I do with P90X. Its good to switch it up every once in awhile and after doing P90X for 9 months now it only helps build on the muscles I have gained. I usually do 30 laps (60 lengths) when I go and this was my plan for today.

Anyways, there is always this older guy who swims around the same time of day I do. This old guy is the kind of guy who brings four different types of flippers to swim in. He even has the flippers where it is a one piece flipper. I kind of want to use them because it is going to make you use your abs the whole time because your legs can never get out of sync. Of course he has a speedo like every old guy has. I think there must be an unwritten rule that says if you are over the age of 60 you have full rights to wear a speedo in any setting including grocery shopping. Old dudes are the only guys I ever see wearing speedos.

So what you need to know is that this guy is intense. He probably could hang with Martin Strel. If you do not know who Martin Strel is, he is the guy who swam the entire length of the Amazon River. Yup, all 3,274 miles. Pretty amazing knowing that we all know there are Piranhas and other creepy fish in there.

It just so happens that every time I go swimming the only lane open is the one next time him. The first couple times I started swimming he always seemed to be just out of my reach. Its not like I started or waited for him to get to the same end of the pool I was at but it worked out that way. We were always neck and neck with each other. He did not know we were racing but we were. It was my mission to beat his ass in a race officiated by me. How could I keep on losing when I make the rules? He did have a small advantage over me. He could do the turn where you do a flip before you hit the wall. I would go all out touch the wall and push off. With the spring action he was getting from the wall he always popped up for air at least a body length ahead of me. I would chase and catch up just to lose him at the turn.

He was not going to beat me today. I was feeling fresh from taking a couple days off from P90X on a trip I was on. I let him get one length ahead of me and my goal was to catch him and pass him before I did 10 laps (20 lengths). This was going to be quite a feat because he usually beats me heads up. It looked like he had been in the pool for 15 minutes so to be fair I figured the one length was good.

I felt so good in the water today. I got onto the same length as him after 8 lengths. It was going to be close but I had 12 more lengths to go. With 6 lengths to go I was half a length behind him. I could not see him under water yet but only on the turns when I had to come out of the water to turn. Down to 3 lengths and I could start to see his wake under water through my goggles. Your within my reach old man!! With 1.5 lengths to go I was neck and neck with him. I caught him. Was I going to tire? Was he going to turn on the after burners? Did he know he was going to lose the race in which he did not know he was racing in?

Yes. Old man river got beat. I pulled ahead of him and beat him by about 4 body lengths. I was tired as hell from all of that swimming. Looking back at it I had to swim twice as hard to catch him. Of course he did not stop. Probably had another 500 laps to go. Til next time old man!!