I was in a good mood when I showed up at the pool today. I was planning on a nice short swim before meeting Jen for lunch. However, I let something that's been irritating me for a while boil to the surface when I walked out on to the pool deck. The water aerobics class is supposed to end at 9:30 every day. The time window is very narrow after that for those of us who want to get in some laps. But almost every day, five or six old people continue to do additional water aerobic exercises after their time is up, clogging up half the lanes in the pool, when their is a perfectly good shallow section off to the side for them to do any of that stuff.
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| Water aerobics is over, now get out of the bloody lap swim lanes... |
It's usually just a mild irritation, because the remaining lanes aren't always full, so I can at least squeeze in and share a lane with a few others until the oldies clear out. But today, there were a few of us waiting to get in and lap swim and we asked the ladies if they'd move over to the shallow section to 'finish' up their workout so we can lap swim. They all kind of scoffed at us and one had the nerve to tell us to "be patient, we don't have too much more left." At that point, I sort of snapped and pointed out that lap swim goes from 9:30 to 11 and it is now 9:40 and I'm getting in whether you like it or not. I jumped in the water and plowed ahead and two of them slowly scooted out of my way as I approached. They gradually flocked to their designated area after that.
I don't mean to generalize, but I often find that senior citizens have a false sense of entitlement and a very jaded view on their role in society. Every person is different, but some act like I should coward at their feet and kiss their asses at all times just because of their age/status. The whole respecting your elders thing is a terrible quote, because I'm a firm believer in showing respect to everyone, even though I will always have room to improve in that department. Their attitude sometimes mirrors a disrespectful teenager, who also thinks the world owes him/her everything. I wonder if people in their 30's, 40's and 50's look at younger folk and older folk in the same annoying light. Meh...
Anyway, here's what I swam after bullying the old ladies out of the lap swim lanes
Warm up
200 free
Core
1,750 free (29:31)
5 x 100 free sprints
Cool down
200 breast
I knocked another 31 seconds off my one-mile pool time this year. My best time last year was 28:36, and I hope to smash that before June. The GSL open water race is inching closer every day.
Total distance: 2,650 yards
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