Among the Huddled Masses, Yearning to Breathe Free!

Sunday morning is typically a swim day for me, but tomorrow is Easter Sunday and the Y will be closed. Because the indoor tri at the Guilderland will be next Sunday, I wanted to make sure I got a swim in this weekend. I can't go this afternoon, because we are having Easter Dinner today at our house, our once a year homage to our Ukrainian Heritage. Since I had some final prep work and cooking to do before our company arrives some time after noon, to get the swim in, I went over to the Y a little after 9A.M.

Oops! The Y does a great job of serving the community and it was apparently serving a good portion of it this morning. The pool was packed.. the four left lanes were blocked off and filled with parents and their young children in the middle of a kinder-swim. (Example - The teacher stood in waist deep water, encircled by a half dozen or so parents, each holding his or her child. The teacher held up a bucket filled with water. As water flowed gently out of the dozens of pin prick holes in the bottom and sides of it, the parents held their children under the bucket, one by one, so the water could flow over their heads. The kids seems to like it.)

The three right lanes were filled with more children and their parents playing and enjoying a free swim. This left one lane for lap swimmers.

When I got there, the lap lane contained one older woman. She was standing at the shallow end of the pool, grasping the edge with her arms, and fluttering her legs in the water - at least I think I saw some movement. The other lane was also filled - an older man alternated between a very slow breast stroke on his front side and an even slower sculling motion on his back. Each time he rolled over, he had to pull up his swim trunks. I admit that I was a little impatient, and wondered why they couldn't be doing what they were doing in the free swim lanes next to us.

In a few minutes, the women finished her workout, grabbed her flip flops from the edge of the pool, put them on her feet while she was still in the water, ducked under the lane line, and walked out of the pool.

I slid into the half lane she vacated, and started my warm ups, first the breast stroke, then the crawl. I usually really appreciate my corrective vision goggles, because after many, many years I can finally see in the water - but today was an exception. If our relative positions in the lanes was just right, as I turned to breathe, I could see my lane partner's shorts shimmying down his backside, revealing the glory of the grand canyon, before he reached down and hitched them up. I guess I should be grateful he wasn't swimming on his back when all this took place.

Lane sharing worked out just fine for a few laps - until another older man appeared out of nowhere, and cut diagonally in front of me into the lane! I know the protocol - if the pool is crowded, you swim 3 to a lane, counter-clockwise. However, you usually wait at the end of the pool, catch the attention of the swimmers already in the lane, and then get in water and begin to circle. Not this guy, though. I figured out what he was doing, and immediately went in to circle mode - not my favorite - but I made do.

A couple of laps of this must have been too much for my sculling friend - the new guy and I were both stronger faster swimmers - and he ducked under the lane line into the free swim lanes and continued on with his stroking.

A few minutes later, a women came and sat at the end of "our" lane, dangling one leg over the lane line and into the free swim lane. I knew she wanted to swim laps, but she didn't say anything to me as I swam near. As I completed my next lap, I looked at her, circled my arm and hand like a baseball ump signaling "home run", asked her if she wanted to circle with us, and told her I would only be swimming for a few more minutes. She did, and she was a good swimmer, faster than either of us, and she soon lapped us. When I could feel her catching me near the end of the lane, I slid over to the left corner, stood and let her pass. Our lane companion must not have liked being lapped, since he, too, moved over to the free swim lanes.

Being a little claustrophobic, I was finding it very hard to get into a rhythm, and after only 500 yards, I called it quits. I rationalized that my work in the pool was done - but my work in the kitchen was not. If I ever need to swim again on a Saturday morning, it will be some time after 7 am when the pool opens, but well before 8:30 am, when the masses assemble.