Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

My feet and ankles are incredibly inflexible - this means I can't bend them out into a flat plane and explains why my flutter kick propels me backwards instead of forward in the water. But, as readers of this blog know, there is a cure: Zoomers. Coach Aaron reached into his magic closet during one of the first Stroke Improvement classes, and found a red pair in just my size. I slipped them on and the results were instantaneous and miraculous: when I kicked, I went forward!

This means I can actually get from one end of the pool to the other while lying on my back and kicking. It means I swim like an otter while lying on my back and carrying a brick on my chest - no more snorting pool water during those drills. It means I can swim 50 yard melt-downs in under 45 seconds, and lose to my bare-footed friend Kelly by only 10 seconds a lap instead of 25! Of course, going faster like that also means I am working harder, fatiguing my legs and walking like a drunken bow-legged sailor on shore leave after a session - but I don't care! I love those little things.

At least, I did. Aaron, sneaky but tall and nice guy that he is, hid the little red zoomers after each workout on the top shelf in the magic closet, the better to make sure they would be there for me on Thursday nights. Two weeks ago, he retrieved them for me at the start of class and I put them on the side of the pool while I did some warm-ups barefooted. I was probably doing the breast stroke, which is a hard stroke to do with zoomers since when you do the frog kick, you turn your feet sideways and the zoomers tend to flare out and scratch your nether regions as you draw your legs in and up.

When I finished the warmups and returned to the edge of the pool - they were GONE! Aaron noted my panic and rushed right over. He noticed that a fit young man two lanes down had a remarkably similar looking pair at the edge of his lane, and went over to speak with him. Turns out this Mark Spitz guy had been a college swimmer and claimed they were his zoomers. He pointed to the markings on the tops of each fin, told us his college coach had told them to mark them thusly so they could be easily identified. I guess he had left them at the Y after a practice one day, and they had worked their way into the magic closet, until I adopted them. What could I say? They were his.

I finished the session with a pair of frogman fins that Coach found for me. They are about as long as my snow shoes, but they do fit. Don't get me wrong - I could swim really fast with them on, and my legs were getting a great workout for sure. But, they weren't my cute little zoomers.

And then the most wonderful thing happened. Santa must have heard about me and my zoomers because under the tree on Christmas morning was - an empty shoe box, with a print out from the Zoomer site, and a note from Santa telling me my very own cute little pair of zoomers were on their way to me from California. They're not here yet - but I am just certain that me and my new zoomers will be together for the start of Aaron's next session!