Thursday, July 27, 2006

this lightning thing is not cool.

OK.

So I had a 1 hour ride today and a 3500 yard swim.

Got up and saw the ominous clouds overhead. Had a ton of errands to run. Thought, "No problem. I'll do the errand-running first and do the rest in the afternoon."

Ran the errands. Came home. Still ominous dark clouds overhead.

Arg. Getting annoyed.

Realized that I would not be swimming outside today. The clouds and thunder seemed to roll in every hour on the hour.

OK. Here's what I'll do. I will do my hour ride on the (GULP) trainer. That will certainly be as much fun as watching paint dry, but at least I'll get it in. Then, I will go to the Y that's farther away from me, since they have an hour long lap swim from 8:30pm-9:30 and the Y close to me is only 9:00-9:45.

My plan was perfect.

Except it was still lightening.

AND YMCA POOLS ARE NOT GROUNDED, SO YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE POOL FOR LIGHTENING!

I mean, seriously. WHAT is the POINT of having an indoor pool if you have to get out when it is lightening? ARrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggksdjlriwaoepurtwaie

So Y #1 which was farther away wouldn't be available until, at the earliest, 9:00pm and THAT was if no more lightening occured.

So I decided to just head to Y#2, which was closer to home anyway, and get in a good 45 minutes there. It won't be 3500, but it will be OK.

And then, of course, just as I arrived, FLASH! Lightening. Again.

Pool is closed until 9:20.

So now I'm looking at, at BEST, a 25 minute swim when I really needed at least an hour.

*sulk*

I actually found myself thinking, "Just let me in the freaking pool! If I die, it will be all my fault and I'll be dead so I can't sue you! I really need to get this 3500 in because I have 4000 tomorrow....it's too close for me to be missing workouts...come on, just let me risk dying, OK?"

*sigh*

This is a rather stupid train of thought.

So, what did I do?

Turned around. Headed home. Walked in to see a very surprised Matt, who didn't expect me home until 10. Called my coach and she told me not to worry--that I'm fine, and that in the grand scheme of things this wouldn't matter, and NO, I should NOT double up on swims tomorrow. All of these things I pretty much knew anyway, but it felt better to hear her say them.

And then I cracked open two nice, cold Hoegarden beers, got two frosty mugs, and sat on the porch with Matt to watch the lightening come in off the lake.

You know, sometimes you just gotta chill out.

If you can't beat Mother Nature, you might as well enjoy her.

13 comments:

Chris said...

What kind of idiocy is that? I've never heard of not being able to swim in an indoor pool because of the weather outside?! You learn something new everyday, I guess.

Have a beer or two for me! This damn diet is ruining everything... :(

Wes said...

Yea, sometime you got to sit back, drink a beer, and say, "I got it." and enjoy it. Good for you!

Wayne said...

Wow, I've never heard of an indoor pool closed for lightning either. In fact, I've never heard of pool where lap swimming is limited to particular times either...different worlds I suppose.

Good to see you found a suitable replacement though =)

Afternoon Tea With Oranges said...

You definitely see the glass as "half full"....that's awesome!

Cliff said...

You had me at the beer part :)..

Are you on the Hoegarden diet? :D

Oh don't talk to me about pool schedule..drive me nuts that the one where i live close so early and open so late...

Rachel said...

Enjoy the break. That's stupid though about the pools being closed when their indoors. I remember that when I lived in St. Louis. Come to San Diego. We don't have thunderstorms. ;)

Brooke said...

Definately a new one for me. I have never heard of indoor pools being closed for lightening.
But beer works too.

Lance Notstrong said...

It's always humorous to me how people actually get upset when they can't ride 50 miles or run 10 miles or swim 3500 yard. What's wrong with us??? :-)

marz_racer said...

Pool schedules suck, and closing for lightning, come on! Have a cold one for me, the last month diet before the 70.3 gives beer the boot.

Eric said...

You will learn quickly that coach knows which workouts are best.......but........I don't think that beer is on the training diet. Coach may have said skip the beer.

Enjoy.

Trifrog said...

Were those beers grounded? That was very risky!

Tracy said...

You know, sometimes things are meant to be... right now things are so fever pitch, hangin' out on the front porch watching lightening sounds like just the thing.

Everything happens for a reason (albeit some jacked up kind of reasoning for an indoor pool to be closed for lightening... is the deck freakin' metal or something? Lol...) - you totally got this sis, don't sweat a thing.

E-Speed said...

uggh sounds like my night tonight. i went to the downtown y and the pool was closed, no explanation, said to call for details tuesday. all other pools on the east side have no late evening adult lap swim. blah. i hate not being in control!