It went swimmingly. 30 laps in the 25-meter basin in 45 minutes, making my average swimming speed (without much effort; that comes later) exactly 1 km/h. Prima was impressed, as I’d come down with a flu-like thing on Thursday night and only just risen from my sick-bed. This morning I was still slow and a bit wobbly, so I got started too late to catch the 7-to-9 laps-swimming slot, but there was another chance from 12 to 1. (This pool is only for ‘target groups’, probably to make it hard for anyone not in a target group to actually swim.)

The open-air pool was still open, so that was where I went. There were about a dozen people in the water already, all ages and sizes. The field seemed to be self-sorting for speed: the slow swimmers closest to the covered pool and the fast ones on the far side. I started out in the ‘somewhat faster than slow’ lane and ended up in the ‘about average’ lane, together with a man with a beard and a ponytail who looked for all the world like a UserFriendly sysadmin, a very small, very fat, very old woman with goggles, and a pair of fortyish women who talked finance, then gardening, then finance again while swimming. Everybody but those two was swimming in silence; quite a weird effect for me, used to swimming with the girls at free-for-all times.

I’d promised myself to do ten laps and then see if I was tired. It turned out that I was a little short of breath but my muscles didn’t protest, so I did another ten laps. Half a kilometer. I can go home now, I thought, but the old woman was still in the water (as well as the sysadmin and the finance women) and I didn’t really feel tired yet, so I kept at it, and at 26 I thought I might just as well go on to 30. After that, I got out, thinking I would warm up in the indoor pool, but as soon as I was on dry land I realised that the human body is very heavy out of the water, all the more so because I had really done those 750 meters. (Also, the indoor pool was fuller of people than the open-air one, and smelt much more of chlorine.) So that was that.

I’ll definitely go again, and if the chlorine doesn’t disagree with me horribly I’ll get a laps-swimming pass when I’ve used up my ten-times ticket. As I already surmised, exercise and fun.

I’d almost guilted myself into joining the gym to get into shape and shed a few pounds of flab. The only problem is that it would fall into my “do something” slot, instead of early music, and I was not eager to replace something fun by something very much not fun. Working out at the gym would probably make me feel good, afterwards, but I can’t imagine that what I’d have to do to achieve that there would be anything but tedious. Also, the health-type gym has a kind of medical atmosphere, and the regulars of the sports-type gym, who stand around smoking in front when I pass it, tend to be the kind of people I don’t feel comfortable around.

So then I was in Germany, and it was hot, and we went to the Freibad in Rübeland on someone’s recommendation. In the water I realised how much I love swimming. Over the next few days a plan hatched: I’d cycle to the swimming pool, swim laps for a while, and cycle back, twice or three times a week. Total-body workout and fun. Get a ten-times ticket first to see if the chlorine doesn’t make me sick (which is why I quit serious swimming as a child, but I think they use less now than forty years ago) and then a special laps-swimming pass (which costs less per month than the gym, too).

On Monday, I tested the bike ride: about twenty minutes. On Tuesday I checked the website of the swimming pool, swimsuit and towel already packed, to make sure of times and prices.

Gah. This week there’s the Zwemvierdaagse, a special event where you sign up for X laps each day for four days and get a medal when you complete it. And the other pool (farther away and not as nice) was closed for maintenance, because all their regulars were in the water in this pool anyway. I could have joined, it didn’t need pre-registration, but I don’t know my value of X yet and I do want to work up to it.

But next week I’ll be in the water, probably on Tuesday and Thursday.

Self, you shouldn’t let the fact that you haven’t posted any What I did on my holidays yet keep you from blogging about other things.

Note to others: Yes, I will blog about Germany. Only not all at once. I just happen not to be the What I did on my holidays type.

(found this while looking for something else and couldn’t resist posting it)

You know that I have three cards, one black on both sides, one red on both sides, the third with one black and one red side. I put them in an envelope (that you know was empty before). You pull out one card. The side you see is black. How much chance that the other side is also black?

Read more ...