Kicked out of the pool

I went up to the pool tonight to get in an extra workout. My team went bowling rather than practice tonight but I met with one of the other swimmers so we could have an extra practice.

The pool was mobbed. IU is having a swimming invitational this weekend and apparently several of the teams were already practicing. The teams were supposed to be practicing at one end of the pool.

I've never seen so many collegiate swimmers in one place. I wanted to walk up to some of the boys and poke my finger into the grooves that accentuated their abs, introduce myself to some of the girls by pointing at my stomach and saying, "Hi, very fit person. This is called body fat." I also wanted to ask some of their coaches for the muscle rubs they were constantly giving to their swimmers.

As we swam, these teams started creeping over into the section of the pool set aside for Rec Swim. For awhile, my friend and I swam in our lane unchallenged. Perhaps because I am so slow.

But then, swimmers from the University of Cincinnati, a good 4 or 5 of them, hopped into our lane and proceeded to kick us out.

No, they didn't tell us we needed to get out. They didn't have to. If I swam a fast 25, I barely got to the wall before their warm up swim speed. It just wasn't working, and they weren't going anywhere, unfortunately. And they weren't even supposed to be in that lane!

Annoyed, my friend and I got out of our lane. We headed down to the diving well, which had a large portion that was only being used by a young woman water jogging. She nicely allowed us to join her in the pool.

Now, the diving well is much warmer than the regular pool, apparently to be easier on the divers' joints. It also was choppy water because the divers were all practicing. It was like swimming in a dark, hot ocean. We had no lane lines; the water was dark and hard to see through. But we hung in there for a short workout.

And after our overall short workout, we wrote out a comment card explaining our annoyance that someone wasn't monitoring the lane situation.

I guess 1000 meters is better than 0.