12 50’s

I told you I was tired.  I was standing in the hallway at work yesterday and an employee was talking to me and I felt like I blacked out.  I suddenly couldn’t remember where I was or what was being said.  Sure five hours of sleep didn’t help, lack of sugar didn’t either.  I was so tired.  I stumbled a little on my feet and swayed.  The employee asked me if I was ok and I shrugged it off.   However, I decided that the gym was out, M,W,F the pool was ritual, but I was too tired.   I turned towards another employees cube and waddled that way. 

I sat down and I hoped that Nate would tell me dude you are too tired just go home.  It is what I wanted to hear because I felt like I was.  I didn’t want to go swim.   I just wanted to go sit my fat ass down on the couch.  I wanted to get to bed early.  I wanted a lot of things but mostly I wanted someone else to tell me it is was ok to miss a workout.  If someone agreed with me, then I could put that little voice in my head that said you’re just making an excuse not to go, you know that right.

I looked at Nate and I said, I am tired, I can barely move.  He said you need to go home and get rest.  It was what I wanted to hear.  So at first I was happy.  I said I am so tired I am going to skip the gym tonight.  He looked at me, and said, is today an extra day or is it a planned day.  I said planned.  He said well if you are tired you should go home and rest.  However, I didn’t really believe him when he said it, or was it that the voice in my head was saying, dude really too tired to swim?  Come on. 

So I said it out loud.  “What if I am tired, but not too tired to swim and I am just using being tired as an excuse not to go to the gym.”  Nate turned away from his laptop and looked at me for a minute or two.  Turned backed typed something, and then looked over again.  Nate is an employee, but I also call him friend so I respect what he has to say.  However, I was pulling for him to be passive aggressive and tell me just to go home.    His response was something to the extent of “I don’t know what you should do but I can almost guarantee if you go to the pool, you are going to feel better.  I think any remaining air I had in me, was completely sucked out of me at that point because tired or not, sick or not, it really didn’t matter there was one fundamental truth and that is when I go to the water, I feel better.

I stood up and cursed him for not being any help.  I told him to pack up his stuff and let’s go home.  It was after 6 anyway.  We got to the parking lot and I couldn’t find my car.  I also couldn’t hear the conversation Nate was having with another co-worker.  I was just so god damned tired.  I finally remember where I parked, I told the gents good bye and I waddled to my car. 

I climbed into it and I fired it up.  I love Snowflake she sounds like a space ship revering up when I hit the power button.  An all too familiar battle started in my head “to go” or “not to go”?  I pulled out of the parking lot with the battle going back and forth.  The sleep kept creeping in from me on all sides and I was straining to keep my eyes open.  I wanted to go home.  Who cares and who would know if I missed a scheduled swim?  The answer to that was all too easy, I would. 

I would know that I let myself down.  I knew that if I was alert enough to be asking the question in the back of my mind of using tiredness to get out of a workout, then perhaps there was some truth to what I was doing.  I told myself  had to get up early on Thursday, I told myself I still had to cook dinner, I needed to see my dog, and I needed to be in bed early, all the things that tell me it is ok to not honor an agreement I made with myself. 

That is when a new voice came into my head.  It was quiet and somewhat peaceful and it just simply said “It is boob night and boob night is the easiest of all my swim sets.”   I have been calling my breaststroke workout “boob night’ for as long as I have kept this blog.  The truth is breaststroke is my best stroke and b/c of how you breathe during breaststroke it is my strongest.  Free Style I am forcing myself to bi-lateral breathe and that has become a nightmare stroke.  Backstroke is backstroke and while I was a kid I was king of the backstroke.  As a fat middle aged man, it is hard for me, gets me wheezing like an old goat.  However, Boob stroke, well that is pretty enjoyable.  I work hard but the motion is easy for me and the breathing is easy for me.  Maybe just maybe I could do some boob stroke.

The next thing I said to myself is you don’t even have to do your flexibility exercises after you swim.  Just give me 600 yard of breaststroke.  That is all.  No more, not less.  30 minutes max.  You can do that.  Can’t you? 

I was unsure.  I was tried you see.  I didn’t want to go.  However, I kept talking to myself.  You just need to go and 24 laps, 600 yards.  It is nothing.  It is a drop in the bucket.  You don’t have to do drills.  You don’t have to follow a routine.  No pulls, no kicks, and not drills, just swim 600 meter breaststroke.   That is easy, it just a few 50’s (a fifty being down and back in the pool).  How many is that.  I looked for my phone to do the math.  Yes, I am CPA that can’t do math, suck it.  I realized I was driving and I would not look at my phone.  So in my tired mine, I started doing division.   It took me a moment but I figured out that 50 went into the first two numbers of 600, which is 60, one time.  I was cooking with gasoline now.  So the remainder of 60 minus 50 would be, what would it be now, it would be 10.  Yes ten was the left over.  Then If I drop down the zero, then I have one hundred.  Then I found myself yelling in the car very excitedly 50 goes into 100 twice that is a two.  So if I have 1 and 2 I have 12.  That means I have to do 12 50’s to get to 600.  I can do 12 50’s can’t I?  I mean I can, right?  Yes, I was sure I could. 

So, I took the next exit and headed to the pool.  I just kept telling myself I can do 12 50’s.  I can do it.  12 50’s I got this.  I repeated it over and over in my head until I got to the parking lot. I got out.  My body said no, let’s go home.  Tired!

I was at the gym therefore nothing was going to stop me from going in and doing what I came to do.  12 50’s I could do that.  I stumbled my way into the locker room after getting yelled at by the front desk for not properly checking in and stilling towels.  I got all changed and ready to go.  12 50’s I can do this. 

I walked out to the pool.  A dude was in my favorite lane and I hated him for it.  So, I took the third lane over and walked to the other end of the pool.  12 x 50’s I can do this.  I always walk to the deep in and then just jump in.  That way I don’t run the risk of jarring my knees.   I noticed the asshole in my lane walking to the middle of the pool and diving under.  What was he doing?  I jumped in. 

There is something about the pool that transforms me from a limping fatty to a graceful fish.  It also changed me from someone who was exhausted to someone who had a little pep in his step.  It was not simply the freezing cold water either waking my ass up.  As I walked back to my goggles and water in the shallow end, I started to come alive and I decided 12 50’s is all I needed to do, but that didn’t mean I had to do them in a specified order.  So I decided to swim a pyramid.  I went: 50, 100, 150, 150, 100, 50 and it felt amazing.  By the end my chest was sore as fuck and my arms were tired but I did it.  Each stroke I felt stronger and stronger.  I was so happy I was there and in the pool.

Then after the swim, I put on my aqua socks and did another 20 minutes of flexibility exercises.  I walked just about every way you can walk in the pool.  Forwards, backwards, side step, butt kickers, fart licks, and even walked high knees.  Man I was on a roll.  I was like I should go ahead and so my strengthening kicks and maybe some stretching too.  However, I did look at that time and it was 15 past 7 and I had been in the water for 50 minutes.  I did still need to go home and cook dinner and play with my puppy that was no lie.  So I departed the pool.  I showered.  I dressed.  I went home.  I cooked.  I ate on plan.  I played with my monkey dog.  I crawled into bed around 10 last night after putting Kona in bed.  According to the sleep watch I didn’t actually fall asleep until after 11 and I was up again at 4:15… However, that is all good.  Solo tonight, 7 a.m. call tomorrow, and then an 8 o’clock call, then I hang out at work till noon and then I am ghost for a long ass weekend!