The New Road

Full contact swimming

I decided to do a couple of miles at the pool tonight before going to see "Smokin' Aces" for some brain candy. Everything was going great for the first mile. After that a second man entered the lane. No problem. We split it down the middle. He was a pretty bad swimmer, but we had some fun now and again racing for small segments.

At about a mile and a half we were at the far edge of the pool at the same time. So he takes off like a bat out of hell. And I do a flip turn and start coming up on him. Pretty soon we are side by side. A wall, if you will. Heading towards the near edge of the pool.

Next thing I know, there is a huge blob in front of me and something hits me in the head. Turns out a lady decided to jump in, but didn't want to wait until we got to her to have us commence circular swimming. She just heads straight at us. Or more specifically me.

Crash! I reel back, everything locks up. After a second or two of just stunned (with a little curse tossed in for good measure), I check to make sure she is ok. Then we get everything sorted out I swim back to the edge. But every muscle is now on fire from having pulled the emergency brake.

On the next time around the guard came over and asked if I had seen her. I said, "No." I really hadn't. I was in the zone. And I did a flip turn which offers very little visibility of the far edge of the pool. So she gave the woman a little talk about proper lane etiquette and how to join turn a split line with two people, into a circle swim with three. Something you would think she knows about since she was going into the fast lane.

When I got back to the locker room I saw that I had more than my muscles strained by the encounter. There was centimeter long scratch just above my eye probably made by her finger nails on the down stroke.

Note to self; when splitting the lane, always take the left side. The right hand portion of the lane is the crash zone. This has happened to me twice now. It's never happened to Lori.