I Have No SKILLS!

Seriously! None whatsoever. I will not lie to you.

I have not been hobbling for several days, but I still am completely unable to run! I HATE NOT RUNNING!!! After almost a week of doing nothing I went back to the gym. I think I burned only 200 calories from my walking for an hour. DISGUSTING! That's what that is. I started thinking that I had heard that swimming burns a good amount of calories and decided I'd give it a try.

I felt pretty funny going in to the gym in my flip flops. I felt even more awkward as I realized that unless I wanted to undress right by the pool where it might draw a little attention that I should walk out to the pool in my suit. Leaving behind my shield of shorts and T shirt. At least I had the towel still to cover up with. You need to understand that at my gym the pool has windows on four sides, looking into the busy weight machines. I also realized that if there were a lot of people in there I was sure going to feel dumb if I turned around and walked back into the locker room immediately. So I had to commit right then to just go for it.

Lucky for me there were only 3 people in there. One couple making lovey eyes at each other in the hot tub, and a crazy guy doing weird exercises in the sauna. I know this because I was watching him for the next hour switch it up between these exercises and pacing around the pool a few times before reentering the sauna.

I made it into the pool unnoticed. Whew! I decided I would just keep moving for however long I would have run for. So I started swimming, and even now I don't even know the name of the "stroke" I was doing. I just know I wasn't doing it right. I don't know how to take the breaths, so I just kept my head above water. That was feeling a little awkward so I changed to the breast stroke. Yeah I know a few of the strokes, just not many. Again though keeping my head above water. No, in case you are wondering I wasn't trying not to get my hair wet. I went strait under when I jumped in. I just don't know what I am doing.

So as I am swimming, which I had no idea was so hard to do, the pool began to fill up. Who would have thought it would be such a popular place at 10 at night? A lady about 60 who didn't speak any English and was wearing a string bikini comes in and starts swimming next to me. She knew what she was doing. It did make me feel a bit better though when she couldn't hang for very long. Next a very lean guy came into the pool. He just stared at me for what felt like too long as I approached the wall and then turned around and headed back. Again, I don't know what I am doing so of course I don't do that graceful flip around mermaid thingy you see them do in the Olympics. It was so uncomfortable. It was like he was glaring at me. Once he put on his goggles all business like, and started swimming I knew why he had looked at me like that. He was disgusted at my lack of skills. He swam in there passing me back and forth for about 30minutes but it was most uncomfortable when he switched to breast stroke halfway through. Probably trying to show me how it was really done. How do you swim directly towards someone while keeping your head above the water and pretend like you don't even notice them? I was hating this!

Next some lunky dude came into the other lane. Yep he had goggles and he knew what he was doing too, only he wasn't so condescending about it. No, no one had said a word to anyone else, but come on, you could totally tell what they were thinking! I didn't even care that he was there except for once or twice when we turned around at the same end of the pool at the same time and he did that graceful mermaid turn and I did something else.

Then this guy, well okay if we're being honest here, this idiot, probably in his mid twenties, with TWO pig tails in his hair, that was tops 3 inches long, on the middle of his head, comes into the pool. He was one of those super muscly guys who for sure spends way too much time lifting weights, and probably more than that looking in the mirror. You will agree with my assumption when I tell you that he was wearing nothing but a pair of SPANDEX SHORTS! Anyway... I knew this goofball was probably going to be hilarious to watch trying to show off and swim. At least he might make for some humorous entertainment as I painfully whittled down each hour. Nope! He was a real swimmer too. Dang it! Why did everyone have to make this look so stinking easy? Toward the end of his swim he just stayed at one wall looking back at the pool. There was no way he couldn't see how awkward I was even if he wasn't looking me, which I am certain he wasn't. By this time lunky guy is gone, and a group of 5 or 6 guys wearing a gallon of cologne and speaking a language I had never heard, were splashing and racing, again gracefully, back and forth in the lane next to me. At least these guys didn't have goggles. I just wanted to scream out..."I am a runner not a swimmer, I know I look ridiculous!" Instead, I just kept swimming.

Finally a very large man came out, untucked his grey t-shirt from his cotton sweatpants that were up to somewhere near his armpits, looked both ways, took off his shirt and pants and barrelled down the stairs into the pool. His girlfriend came out a few seconds later mirroring him almost exactly. Next thing you know, of course, he pulls out his goggles, and then swims quite smoothly down the lane. The cherry on top for me though was when his girlfriend pulled out her big ole scuba diving face mask to wear as she swam her laps! Incredible! Even these unlikely two looked like pros next to me.

That was it. It was one hour of swimming and felt like 5 hours of humiliation. Done! I couldn't stand it anymore.

So I have a few options here. One option is to get someone to teach me to to do a few strokes, invest in a pair of goggles, and loose whatever pride I have left. Another option is to just sit around and eat brownies and wallow in self pity until my leg heals. This sounds fantastic in theory, but doesn't look so good in my brand new jeans. I have decided one thing for sure though, definitely not going to think about doing a triathlon like I was considering earlier in the week.

Tonight when I went to the gym, I was wearing my tennis shoes. The treadmill was singing my name. I cranked up the incline, who knew it went all the way to 15... and walked as briskly as my gimpy leg would allow. I did not miss the pool!