Swimming in 1.9 Meters

After many days, I went swimming today!  It’s something I enjoyed doing as a kid even if I was scared of drowning.  I still get a bit queasy about hitting the deep end and looking down down down at that bottomless floor!  But I still do it.  I guess it’s normal anxiety.

Your swimming options work like so in New Delhi – either you are a member of a club or you pay-per-use.  We were members of a few decent clubs, one with affiliations throughout the country, but my mom didn’t renew the membership even after my many requests for her to do so.  The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has a few “public” sports complexes spread out throughout the city.  These facilities do require membership but it’s easy enough to get as opposed to the other clubs where you could be on the waiting list for many years.

So I went to a nearby DDA sports facility today.  They have strict timings, unfortunately.  Mornings are from 6am to 10am.  Evenings go from 4pm to 9pm.  The catch though is that you can only swim for 45 minutes at one go, regardless of the number of people in the pool!  I didn’t like that too much.  It would have been great if it was 1 hour 30 minutes.  That would have been just the perfect time.  But theek hai, 45 minutes is good too.  I can always pay for two continuous slots if I want.  They may make me get out of the pool, sit around for 15 minutes, and then re-enter.

I thought about swimming a few months ago when it was hot as heck in Delhi.  I was seriously craving a pool.  I didn’t make it due to a busy work schedule and a busy time heading down to meet my cigar friend.  Things have slowed down on both ends so I finally got out my arse out there.  The DDA pools close end of September until April each year.  I may not find another location to hit but I intend to make it for the next three weeks as much as I can.  Good exercise!

I guess I should say something about the 1.9 meters in the subject, as if you haven’t figured it out.  The pool goes from 0.9 meters in the shallow end to 1.9 in the deep end.  That’s just over 6 feet.  It’s a very long pool.  It seems like it’s olympic size or maybe even longer. 

The water in Delhi is a bit slippery.  Or, to be more precise, the water causes the sides/floors of the container, whether it be a bucket in the house or a pool, to be slippery.  I’m not quite sure what causes this.  I know the water is “hard”.  That doesn’t quite explain it but that’s all I’ve got.  When I got in the pool - which, by the way I have to say, the water was of perfect temperature, not at all cold or even cool, it was just right – and tried walking, the bottom of my feet slid on the floor.  It’s not that I couldn’t stand or keep my balance.  I may even be able to do fast walking if I tried.  But there was definitely a bit of slippin-and-slidin’ going on too.

So what did I do in the pool?  Well, the first 15 minutes or so I was just getting acclimated to the water.  I waddled around.  I put my head under water.  I guess out of habit, when I got back up, I shook my head to get rid of the excess water out of my hair to stop it from falling in my eyes.  A second later I realized I shave my head!  I had to smile at my own lameness.  You can make a man bald but you can’t take the full head of hair out of him!

I immediately realized I need goggles.  The chlorine wasn’t bad but it I could use a pair to protect the eyes.  It seemed like everyone (the 10 people or so there at the time) was wearing them.  The men had caps on too.  And the swimming trunks – well, they were wearing real trunks, the real short kind Michael Phelps wears.  Okay, I guess they were a bit longer.  Just a tad bit.  They definitely weren’t the regular shorts guys wear in the States when they go swimming, you know, the ones that sometimes go to the knees.  That’s India and the British influence for you.  Everything has to be proper.  The women wore the full piece swimming suits.  I wasn’t expecting to see any bikinis, not that there were any young women out there.  The timing what it was, there were only a couple of aunties, which by the way, I thought was awesome.  Good to see them do some exercising!

I swum around for a bit but was doing more people watching for the first 15 minutes.  I then decided to swim the width as much as I could.  I ended up doing about 6 widths, on and off, stopping half way, enjoying the fact that I was in the water, then getting started again.  I went swimming as much out of recreation as for exercising.  Still, there’s no harm in making it burn a few calories!

The water is your friend.  You don’t have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move – Aleksandr Popov

When I go out and race, I’m not trying to beat opponents, I’m trying to beat what I have done…to beat myself, basically.  People find that hard to believe because we’ve had such a bias to always strive to win things.  If you win something and you haven’t put everything into it, you haven’t actually achieved anything at all.  When you’ve had to work hard for something and you’ve got the best you can out of yourself on that given day, that’s where you get satisfaction from.  – Ian Thorpe