#sam swims

[lil-sis-sammy]

These guys are serious about hiding from me! But here’s the final tank and names! Our Bumblebee platy (back, above the tail of the plane) is ‘Torpedo’, our frog (the silver blur diving towards the wing) is ‘Beachcomber’, and our Lyretail guppy (Upper right, beside the heater) is ‘Seaspray’. Thank you everyone for your suggestions!

(These guys might feature a little more prominently. If you would like to filter out my aquarium posts, they’re tagged with sam swims)

[copperbadge]

So, the most ironic part of putting myself in a walking boot for four weeks on Thursday is that on Wednesday I committed to training for a triathlon next year. Which sounds terrifying, but they have these “sprint” triathlons that are a half mile swim, a 12 mile bike ride, and a 5K, and that seems reasonably doable. 

I can swim enough to keep myself alive in an emergency, but I’ve never done any kind of distance swimming, so on Wednesday I joined a gym with a pool. But I realized that I have only ever swum in the kind of community pool where there’s “kids free play” and then the pool closes down for lap swimming, and I’m not ready for lap swimming but I don’t want to be That Guy that’s in the way of the lap swimmers. So I tried to google “how gym pools work” and while it didn’t give me much, I did learn a lot about lap swimming manners! 

I was reading this one post on reddit by a woman who had asked what kind of swim gear she could wear and what she should wear into the sauna, and all of a sudden this shockingly rude Finnish person (I’ve never met a Finnish person capable of rudeness before, I thought it had languished in their DNA generations ago) appeared in the thread to inform everyone participating that none of them had ever been in a real sauna, because there’s only one kind of real sauna and only the Finnish do it, so it doesn’t matter what gross shit they wear to their gross shit saunas. And naturally people started giving them shit about their sauna elitism. 

I’m lying in bed, reading this post on my phone, when suddenly it hits me and I whisper softly to myself:

Things are heating up in the sauna fandom. 

And then I laughed so hard at myself that Polk, who was sleeping on my stomach, got mad and tried to chew up my shirt. 

Anyway, I’m off a bit later this morning to buy a pair of goggles and a lock and thence to the gym to figure out how the fuck swimming works. Wish me luck. 

[copperbadge]

I feel bereft, I have no image to post this morning to document the fact that I went swimming! There’s no way to document that. Unless I can take my FitBit into the pool, I have to investigate. 

I decided to try before-work swimming and it worked out really well -- left the house at around 5:30, caught the 5:40 bus and got to the gym at 6:05, was in the pool by 6:20. Nobody was in any of the lanes so I felt okay flailing my way through some swimming attempts -- turns out I can do the breaststroke still, and while I can do a crawl in theory, in practice, as with everything in my life, breathing is the problem. Having to inhale so fast and exhale immediately through my nose meant I got out of breath SUPER QUICKLY, I could only do about four bilateral breaths before I had to stop and gasp in air. But at least I know where I need to focus.

Anyway, in 20 minutes I managed four pool-lengths, which is a lot less than the 35 I will need, but once I figure out breathing I’ll be fine. 

Not sure what I’m going to do about having my wet swim stuff sit in a bag at my desk all day, but I’m sure I can figure that out eventually too. And at least I’m keeping active while I’m in the walking boot, I feel like I ran a 5K this morning. 

[copperbadge]

One-piece androgynous swimsuits inspired by 1920s style. Sizes XS to 5X. Small-batch printed on recycled fabric and sewn in the USA. Luxury quality with transparent pricing.

Last month I had a pretty good month on the side-gig, and I’ve been looking for a new swimsuit that isn’t either board shorts or speedo -- I want a bit of leg coverage -- so when I found Beefcake Swimwear I splurged on one. 

I did ten laps in it this morning for the first time and it was awesome -- the legs stay in place without the silicone catching on the skin, the suit is very durable and has a nice supportive inner layer, and it doesn’t hold onto water the way my other suit does. The suit dryer was broken so I wrung it out in the sink, but unlike my board shorts basically no moisture wrung out of it.  

Plus I look like a fashionable young fellow of the jazz age in it. 

Can recommend! The suits start at $99 but if you’re in the market for a good suit and want to support a small business, it’s worth the cost. 

[copperbadge]

I LIKED BRUNOST BEFORE IT WAS COOL, back when they kept it in the refrigerator case with all the other “low class” prepackaged cheeses. Now Whole Foods has it right out there with the fancy imported and artisanal cheeses. 

This really doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I went to the pool and did TEN WHOLE POOL LENGTHS this morning, but I feel weird not posting some kind of picture and I saw this while walking...

*sigh*

To get to my gym I walk through a Whole Foods. 

I know. 

Being fair it’s the same Whole Foods I once threw up in. 

Anyway the upshot is, I’m watching brunost (also called gjetost) become popular before my eyes and also I swam my ass off today. I still have not mastered breathing (no one is surprised) but I did practice inhaling on the surface and exhaling underwater. 

[copperbadge]

I’m just gonna post pictures of my cats when I go swimming, I guess.

Today was technically a rest day, but I wanted to swim and also I wanted to go to the gym near work, because the gym near my home apparently doesn’t have a suit drying machine and I was determined to find one and try it out. And yes, it is quite miraculous, that dried my suit like WHOA. 

Anyway, I left these two goobers behind, did ten pool lengths, found out the hot tub was broken, used the suit dryer, and now I am at work. 

I think I figured out my breathing problem -- there’s a difference between “blowing” and “exhaling” and I’m doing the former, which is causing me to lose breath too fast (and would probably cause hyperventilation if I did it for long enough). The problem with exhaling is that if I do it through my nose I automatically want to inhale, which has caused Some Sputtering this morning, but if I exhale through my mouth, I blow water straight up my nose, leading us back to Problem One: The Sputter.

I kept going back to something @onceuponacupoftea said in the Breathing Discussion, to breathe out as if blowing on food to cool it, and so far that’s been the best technique I’ve found -- I have to concentrate on exhaling instead of blowing, but making that face does help keep the water/bubbles out of my nose. Using this, I managed nearly half a pool length without needing to stop for breath, which for me was pretty significant. So, the journey continues.  

[copperbadge]

Today for the first time I did swim, bike, and run, if not quite in that order. I did 3.25 miles on the bike, a quarter of a mile on the treadmill, and then four laps in the pool. Though if you add in the walk to the gym it’s more like a mile and a half walking/running, and I’m going to count it for math reasons.

Compared to the final triathlon distance I’m shooting for it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s 1/4 of the way there. So that’s not an awful starting place, especially factoring in that I forgot to hit my prevention inhaler and am still working on the foot injury. Someday I’m gonna come back and reblog this with a photo of my triathlon finisher results! SOMEDAY.

[copperbadge]

Prowly is showing off my new “gym bag”! 

I got this dry-bag on sale for about $6 and it’s pretty amazing. It’s an 8 liter bag so it’s relatively small, but stuffed in there under Prowly’s butt right now are my suit, cap, goggles, and a full-sized beach towel. The buckles make a loop that attaches to my regular bag, and there’s a carabiner for my lock. Best of all, once my suit goes in and the bag seals shut, it keeps the moisture and any lingering chlorine smell inside. 

Prowly says it’s lumpy but he’s probably sitting on my goggles.