Saturday, August 06, 2005
Watered Down
I went for a swim yesterday.
No, wait.
I went for a swim yesterday.
Perhaps you don't quite get it.
I went for a swim yesterday.
See, I've been land-based for all the... many... years of my life (cue the oh shit I'm so damn olddddd line)
I like to run.
I hate water.
I don't know why, maybe it's some repressed memory of myself as a very small child swimming across an olympic sized pool at night to grab onto my dad (he trawls really slowly and infinitely through the water like an oil tanker running on energizer batteries) and latching onto the wrong man's back, and almost dying of shock, shame, and inhaled water.
I haven't swum in the last nine years.
So it was kinda weird, after working the usual mundane weight thingies yesterday at 75% efficiency (that's the best I can manage after an on-call... anything more makes me go home and die in bed instantly) and ogling the runners on their treadmills (Still can't run at the moment thanks to my posterior talofibular ligament injury, see below) I suddenly decided I'd like to have a swim.
Fortunately, my gym has a pool, and even better, they let you swim in the gym shorts (which come with an inner lining and all)
I gotta say this. You really can forget how to swim. The first steps into the pool were like stepping into outer space. I couldn't breathe... there was all this... like... water. Scary.
(man, now I'm beginning to write like the nutplane. Just kill me now.)
First few laps involved me learning how to breathe again, and inhaling small quantities of water thanks to sheer ineptitude and incoordination (its a lot easier to hit someone with a sword than it is to wait till you break the surface to breathe again)
And then it all came back, and... I started enjoying the feeling of... power? One gets pulling oneself through the water.
Since everyone was doing the breast stroke, I did likewise. Only, unlike everyone else I was blind in the water sans goggles; no matter, with the breast stroke you just follow your hands and you go straight.
Decided to try to remember how to do the crawl and it was great till I hit the side wall. The OTHER side wall across from where I started... how embarrassing. Cough.
An hour later, I was relishing the feeling of... what exactly I can't put to words... There's something about getting all the timing's just right so that you cut through the water at optimal speed with minimum effort -- my eyesight suddenly went fuzzy. It felt like a fog had rolled in... everywhere.
Then it hit me then why we really wear goggles.
It's the stop the water getting into our eyes... and diluting down our corneas.
I couldn't see right for the rest of the evening. It was like having astigmatism (which I do) only 100 time worse. If the friend I went for Rochor Dao Huay had only known how bad my vision was dodging doubly-dangerous taxicabs (with pretty psychedellic halos around em)... I think she'd have wanted to drive instead. Heh heh.
But I had fun.
And I never thought I'd write about swimming one day, of all things.
*****
Sway
Speaking of ogling the runners, there's this one girl I really like to watch at the gym while she runs.
It isn't because she's slim, graceful and pretty (which she is), or her long, long auburn hair. (having lived in the land of the dyed for half a year now, I'm finally learning how to tolerate synthetic hair colouring... especially since my mum is doing it too...)
I like to watch her... sway.
Most guys would nod and go uh-huh... ougha ougha.
But that's not what I'm talking about (although the lucky girl is endowed, and does sway like that too)...
it's the way her shoulders move when she runs, perfect rhythm. So relaxed, almost disjointed - yet with just a touch of tension and control.
Perfect.
Power, and freedom. She looks so free when she runs, so... uninhibited. So infinite. Like she could run like that, forever.
Someday when I recover my ability to run, I reckon I'll tell her as we run side by side - This isn't a pickup line or anything, but I really like the way you run.
Bet she falls off the treadmill in shock. heh.
No, wait.
I went for a swim yesterday.
Perhaps you don't quite get it.
I went for a swim yesterday.
See, I've been land-based for all the... many... years of my life (cue the oh shit I'm so damn olddddd line)
I like to run.
I hate water.
I don't know why, maybe it's some repressed memory of myself as a very small child swimming across an olympic sized pool at night to grab onto my dad (he trawls really slowly and infinitely through the water like an oil tanker running on energizer batteries) and latching onto the wrong man's back, and almost dying of shock, shame, and inhaled water.
I haven't swum in the last nine years.
So it was kinda weird, after working the usual mundane weight thingies yesterday at 75% efficiency (that's the best I can manage after an on-call... anything more makes me go home and die in bed instantly) and ogling the runners on their treadmills (Still can't run at the moment thanks to my posterior talofibular ligament injury, see below) I suddenly decided I'd like to have a swim.
Fortunately, my gym has a pool, and even better, they let you swim in the gym shorts (which come with an inner lining and all)
I gotta say this. You really can forget how to swim. The first steps into the pool were like stepping into outer space. I couldn't breathe... there was all this... like... water. Scary.
(man, now I'm beginning to write like the nutplane. Just kill me now.)
First few laps involved me learning how to breathe again, and inhaling small quantities of water thanks to sheer ineptitude and incoordination (its a lot easier to hit someone with a sword than it is to wait till you break the surface to breathe again)
And then it all came back, and... I started enjoying the feeling of... power? One gets pulling oneself through the water.
Since everyone was doing the breast stroke, I did likewise. Only, unlike everyone else I was blind in the water sans goggles; no matter, with the breast stroke you just follow your hands and you go straight.
Decided to try to remember how to do the crawl and it was great till I hit the side wall. The OTHER side wall across from where I started... how embarrassing. Cough.
An hour later, I was relishing the feeling of... what exactly I can't put to words... There's something about getting all the timing's just right so that you cut through the water at optimal speed with minimum effort -- my eyesight suddenly went fuzzy. It felt like a fog had rolled in... everywhere.
Then it hit me then why we really wear goggles.
It's the stop the water getting into our eyes... and diluting down our corneas.
I couldn't see right for the rest of the evening. It was like having astigmatism (which I do) only 100 time worse. If the friend I went for Rochor Dao Huay had only known how bad my vision was dodging doubly-dangerous taxicabs (with pretty psychedellic halos around em)... I think she'd have wanted to drive instead. Heh heh.
But I had fun.
And I never thought I'd write about swimming one day, of all things.
*****
Sway
Speaking of ogling the runners, there's this one girl I really like to watch at the gym while she runs.
It isn't because she's slim, graceful and pretty (which she is), or her long, long auburn hair. (having lived in the land of the dyed for half a year now, I'm finally learning how to tolerate synthetic hair colouring... especially since my mum is doing it too...)
I like to watch her... sway.
Most guys would nod and go uh-huh... ougha ougha.
But that's not what I'm talking about (although the lucky girl is endowed, and does sway like that too)...
it's the way her shoulders move when she runs, perfect rhythm. So relaxed, almost disjointed - yet with just a touch of tension and control.
Perfect.
Power, and freedom. She looks so free when she runs, so... uninhibited. So infinite. Like she could run like that, forever.
Someday when I recover my ability to run, I reckon I'll tell her as we run side by side - This isn't a pickup line or anything, but I really like the way you run.
Bet she falls off the treadmill in shock. heh.
