There should have been music playing.
Have you ever had one of those moments that seems so perfectly suited to the emotional music in particularly heart-rending scenes in Hollywood movies? Well, as Seb's face disappeared from view as I closed the front door to his house, a light, tinkly, minor key piano soundtrack was the only thing missing from the scene.
You see, this weekend, Seb and I are off to Barcelona, with Mike, the fellow mentioned early in this blog, to celebrate Mike's birthday. Seb has a lot of work to be done on an essay due in before we leave the country, for his University course. This is the reason he couldn't afford to take time out this week for our swim, and therefore the reason I went swimming all on my own. I had dropped in at his house before I went to the pool, to sort out flight details and payment, etc. Mundane stuff, but it happened to produce an oscar worthy farewell scene. Well, sort of.
With Seb temporarily out of the picture, I could, if I was so inclined, write anything I wanted in this week's blog, with nobody to deny what went on. However, I am the sort of person to stick to the truth, as I would feel not only as if I am cheating you, the reader, but also myself.
"Hmm....'Attractive Female Swimwear Models' night'" I read on the entrance to the leisure centre door as I went in. "That's not something you see everyday"
I realised I was reading aloud, and I was overheard by a group of 5 or 6 attractive female swimwear models.
"Have you never been to an AFSM night before?" the most attractive of them asked.
"No." I answered, plausibly.
"Don't worry," they attractively chimed, in unison, "We'll make you feel at home..."
Ahem. In all honesty, it didn't happen much like this at all. In fact, the pool was crowded, and I was a little too fast for the users of the slow lane, and a little too slow for the users of the fast lane. Yes indeed, I fell victim to what those in the know call "Two-lane frustration". I completed 60 lengths eventually, and by the time I had, at around 8:40PM, most of the swimmers had paired off and settled in the shallows to chat amongst themselves. It was the first time I had been swimming without Seb in about 5 months. It was different. The pool used to seem a lot more blue, I mused sadly, with Seb's cheerful face bobbing around in it. Still, now the lanes were empty, so I warmed down, silently, for half an hour.
One thing that did come of tonight's swim was yet another new swimming style (We seem to invent a new one weekly). I would swim from the deep end to the shallow end, and, as I approached the end of the pool, I would dive underwater and swim using only breast stroke kicks while extending my arms in front of me, with my hands never breaking contact with the bottom of the pool. I called it "The Bottom Feeder Stroke", and it did amuse me for a while. But when I had surfaced and there was nobody there with whom to share my new discovery, I sighed. My mind returned to an article I had read about swimming in the week:
Does swimming make you fat?
If you are exercising to lose weight, choose your sport carefully. New research shows that certain forms of exercise cause participants to feel more hungry than others - with the result that any calories lost are likely to be quickly replaced. Swimming in cold water, for instance, tends to make people crave high-fat foods such as biscuits, while mid- to low-intensity exercise such as walking has no impact on appetite. Meanwhile, running on a hot day actually suppresses hunger. The findings, said Dr David Stensel of Loughborough University, who led the research, are related to the production of the appetite hormone ghrelin, which is suppressed by running and stimulated by swimming. "The body tends to respond to exercise so it can do it more efficiently in future," said Dr Stensel. Runners perform better if they have a low body weight, he explained, whereas people who swim in cold water would benefit from protective fat.
With that in mind, I heaved myself out of the pool, feeling a combination of the natural endorphin-induced elation that comes from exercise, a sense of loneliness in the absence of my swim buddy, and that delicious hunger that seems to affect every cell in your body, that only comes from swimming. I bade farewell to the Attractive Female Swimwear Models, and drove home to get a biscuit.
At home, I texted Seb and told him swimming was lonely without him.
Seb 12-Mar-2009
00:39:10
Wasn't your new swimming buddy, Burly McRepface, there? Or how about Jiggling Joe the Jogger?
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Monday, 2 March 2009
Somewhere on this island is the greatest predator there ever lived. The second greatest predator must take him down.
Hello again!! Sorry for the delay. Please make a note of the location of the emergency exits and the Swim for Glory blog will be with you shortly.
So, after the longest break from swimming we have had since we started the blog back in 1927 in the shady corner of a Guatemalan flag weaver's kitchen, we were more than ready for some chlorinated fun. Upon returning from China, getting back to work, and taking weeks to recover fully from my jetlag, I was much in need of getting the blood pumping through my veins. Four whole weeks without swimming left me feeling somewhat desolate.
Sure enough, when I finally dived into the pool, the bulk of the negative perspective in my mind fell out of my brain, like when you tip up a recently opened yoghurt pot full of past-its-use-by-date yoghurt onto the kitchen table. As I swam my worries away, the remnants of negativity were scraped out of my mind with every endorphin-inducing exhalation, much like when you scrape the rest of the old yoghurt (that which didn't fall out onto the kitchen table initially) out of the pot with a spoon or modified stick.
Yoghurt metaphors aside (even those to which everyone can relate), after the swim, I felt on top of the world. As such, it was not hard to believe the conclusion scientists have recently arrived at - That swimming makes you live longer. I read the following article in the paper on the underground back home from Heathrow:
"WATER SPORT
Swimming lengths in a pool can be a real chore but it could help you live longer. In fact, it is more effective at extending your life than any other sport. Going for a daily dip could add up to five years to your life, a study found. The medical histories of 40, 000 men aged between 20 and 90 over 32 years were examined in the US research. Swimmers had a 53 per cent lower mortality risk than those who exercised by walking or running."
So, the following week (Wednesday 25th February 2009), I was more than happy to get back into the old routine of a weekly swim, safe in the knowledge that Seb and I were adding roughly 260.85714 days each to our lifespans (Including leap days). "What are you going to do today?" I asked Seb as we approached the leisure centre. "Hmmm.....I think I might do a bit of swimming".
Too right.
Seb had casually mentioned to me previously that swimming lengths in a pool is perhaps one of the most antisocial pastimes, referring to the fact that although friends who go swimming together chat to each other between, and sometimes during, lengths, the swimming pool is not the first place you think of when making new friends comes to mind. So, after collecting our entry cards for the pool ("Oh! They're green today!" I remarked as I turned mine over to see "Splash Time" scrawled over mine in a hurried hand with permanent marker. Seb found this very funny, and was was even more amused that this apparently juvenile signature was confined to my card.), and swimming a kilometre and a half, I decided to challenge this theory.
I sat in the shallow end, stretching and flexing my pleasantly burning calf muscles underwater, as a Barrell-chested behemoth approached in my lane. He stopped and stood there, turning occasionally to watch the clock, apparently timing his breaks.
"What sort of reps are you doing?" I asked him in what I deemed to be an offhand kind of way. I thought this would be the perfect way to break the ice, to ask him about the exercise he was engaging in. After all, that big muscled lobster from Spongebob Squarepants likes to talk about little else than weightlifting.
"20 lengths" he said.
"Oh!" I deftly countered, involuntarily conveying a non-existent fascination with his reply.
"And...." I was thinking aloud now. "What breaks do you take?"
"One or two minutes. Whenever I'm ready, really."
I did that laugh you do to punctuate polite but uninspiring conversation. "Are you training for anything?"
"Me and those two blokes over there....the one swimming towards us and the one swimming away... are training for a triathlon. Well, three triathlons, really."
It was at this point that I noticed I was still sitting down in the water, and he was standing there, about 8 foot tall, our different resting positions accentuating the height difference.
"Have you heard of swimtrek?"
"Yeah."
I was taken aback. I don't meet too many people who have heard of it. "We're training for one of those trips. We're going to swim from Greek island to Greek island. Do you know anyone who's been on a swimtrek holiday?"
"Nah, you just hear of these things, don't yer?"
"Well good luck with the triathlons!" I said.
"Those two keep taking the p*** out of me, cos I'm a bit older than them. My missus does as well. She keeps taking the p*** out of me!!"
I laughed, more appropriately this time.
"I'm sure you show them up, experience over youth an' all that!"
"Yeah!" he laughed, and we bade each other a fond farewell.
I swam out of the lane to the free swimming part of the pool, and waited at the shallow end in line with Seb's swimming trajectory, eager to tell him about my new friend. Seb altered his course on seeing me, and swam away from where I was sitting. What a joker!
"How did you start the conversation?" Seb asked, when I finally tracked him down.
"I said 'how many reps are you doing?'"
Seb's pleasant, open face silently yet ineffectively concealed his laughter.
"And he still spoke to you?!"
We laughed heartily, in a manner befitting the end of a Thundercats episode or a blog entry, then talked about Streetfighter 2 and the 5 famous people we'd each invite to a dinner party for about half an hour while we warmed down.
Moral of the story: Feeling down? Go for a swim.
So, after the longest break from swimming we have had since we started the blog back in 1927 in the shady corner of a Guatemalan flag weaver's kitchen, we were more than ready for some chlorinated fun. Upon returning from China, getting back to work, and taking weeks to recover fully from my jetlag, I was much in need of getting the blood pumping through my veins. Four whole weeks without swimming left me feeling somewhat desolate.
Sure enough, when I finally dived into the pool, the bulk of the negative perspective in my mind fell out of my brain, like when you tip up a recently opened yoghurt pot full of past-its-use-by-date yoghurt onto the kitchen table. As I swam my worries away, the remnants of negativity were scraped out of my mind with every endorphin-inducing exhalation, much like when you scrape the rest of the old yoghurt (that which didn't fall out onto the kitchen table initially) out of the pot with a spoon or modified stick.
Yoghurt metaphors aside (even those to which everyone can relate), after the swim, I felt on top of the world. As such, it was not hard to believe the conclusion scientists have recently arrived at - That swimming makes you live longer. I read the following article in the paper on the underground back home from Heathrow:
"WATER SPORT
Swimming lengths in a pool can be a real chore but it could help you live longer. In fact, it is more effective at extending your life than any other sport. Going for a daily dip could add up to five years to your life, a study found. The medical histories of 40, 000 men aged between 20 and 90 over 32 years were examined in the US research. Swimmers had a 53 per cent lower mortality risk than those who exercised by walking or running."
So, the following week (Wednesday 25th February 2009), I was more than happy to get back into the old routine of a weekly swim, safe in the knowledge that Seb and I were adding roughly 260.85714 days each to our lifespans (Including leap days). "What are you going to do today?" I asked Seb as we approached the leisure centre. "Hmmm.....I think I might do a bit of swimming".
Too right.
Seb had casually mentioned to me previously that swimming lengths in a pool is perhaps one of the most antisocial pastimes, referring to the fact that although friends who go swimming together chat to each other between, and sometimes during, lengths, the swimming pool is not the first place you think of when making new friends comes to mind. So, after collecting our entry cards for the pool ("Oh! They're green today!" I remarked as I turned mine over to see "Splash Time" scrawled over mine in a hurried hand with permanent marker. Seb found this very funny, and was was even more amused that this apparently juvenile signature was confined to my card.), and swimming a kilometre and a half, I decided to challenge this theory.
I sat in the shallow end, stretching and flexing my pleasantly burning calf muscles underwater, as a Barrell-chested behemoth approached in my lane. He stopped and stood there, turning occasionally to watch the clock, apparently timing his breaks.
"What sort of reps are you doing?" I asked him in what I deemed to be an offhand kind of way. I thought this would be the perfect way to break the ice, to ask him about the exercise he was engaging in. After all, that big muscled lobster from Spongebob Squarepants likes to talk about little else than weightlifting.
"20 lengths" he said.
"Oh!" I deftly countered, involuntarily conveying a non-existent fascination with his reply.
"And...." I was thinking aloud now. "What breaks do you take?"
"One or two minutes. Whenever I'm ready, really."
I did that laugh you do to punctuate polite but uninspiring conversation. "Are you training for anything?"
"Me and those two blokes over there....the one swimming towards us and the one swimming away... are training for a triathlon. Well, three triathlons, really."
It was at this point that I noticed I was still sitting down in the water, and he was standing there, about 8 foot tall, our different resting positions accentuating the height difference.
"Have you heard of swimtrek?"
"Yeah."
I was taken aback. I don't meet too many people who have heard of it. "We're training for one of those trips. We're going to swim from Greek island to Greek island. Do you know anyone who's been on a swimtrek holiday?"
"Nah, you just hear of these things, don't yer?"
"Well good luck with the triathlons!" I said.
"Those two keep taking the p*** out of me, cos I'm a bit older than them. My missus does as well. She keeps taking the p*** out of me!!"
I laughed, more appropriately this time.
"I'm sure you show them up, experience over youth an' all that!"
"Yeah!" he laughed, and we bade each other a fond farewell.
I swam out of the lane to the free swimming part of the pool, and waited at the shallow end in line with Seb's swimming trajectory, eager to tell him about my new friend. Seb altered his course on seeing me, and swam away from where I was sitting. What a joker!
"How did you start the conversation?" Seb asked, when I finally tracked him down.
"I said 'how many reps are you doing?'"
Seb's pleasant, open face silently yet ineffectively concealed his laughter.
"And he still spoke to you?!"
We laughed heartily, in a manner befitting the end of a Thundercats episode or a blog entry, then talked about Streetfighter 2 and the 5 famous people we'd each invite to a dinner party for about half an hour while we warmed down.
Moral of the story: Feeling down? Go for a swim.
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