Progress and People

Back on July 3rd, I posted that I had decided to take myself in hand. Since then every weekday I've been at home, I have hauled myself out of bed at around 7:20 and pedalled down to the swimming pool. When I started I could just manage 12 lengths before dragging myself out of the water, completely knackered. Today for the first time, I manged 30 lengths between arriving and 8:25. I then cycled home. Two benefits are noticable:
i) I take a lot less time to recover from being puffed out
and
ii) I can pedal in a much higher gear on my bike.
This convinces me that I am slowly getting fitter and stronger. I shall never swim in the Olympics, but this exercise is clearly doing me good. I have promised myself to keep going.

One of my pleasures is watching people. Our local pool has a reduced price for swimming if you enter the pool after 8:30. Approximately 35 - 40 pensioners take advantage of this every morning. They start arriving at the poolside at about 8:05 and gather, sitting in seats or leaning on the guard rails. By 8:25 they resemble a flock of starlings on a telephone wire, all chatting and squabbling amongst themselves. At 8:30 prompt, they throw themselves into one of the three pools and completely disrupt any attempts by others to swim lengths.

Listening to other swimmers conversations reveals that many come to get or keep fit. It has to be said, perhaps slightly undiplomatically, that if talking were an Olympic sport, some of the ladies who come to swim would win a Gold without any problem. If they put as much effort into their swimming as they do into their chatting they would have slyphlike figures in no time!