Swimming. With characters.
Most people know that swimming has given me a lot to write / talk about over the years and generally it is because of the comical situations that arise in the pool. We have Mr Cologne, Mr Flipper Man, Mrs Dry Hair and a few others that I can’t really recall because I may or may not have seen them lately. Three constants remain and in general, I’m pretty happy and content with the way things are.
Then you have one of those kick-in-the-jaw clarifying moments and realise that another character that has yet to be named has joined the lane and he needs an introduction.
This morning I got myself to the pool in good time and it looked like I wasn’t going to struggle to finish the session for once. The first set of my session I felt heavy, I felt slow, I felt like the water had a current even if we were only in a 25m pool, and that current was moving against me all of the time.
Mr Flipper Man arrived early today, as did Mr Cologne (who has taken to talking to me lately. But if he calls me duck one more time I might be tempted to quack at him). Mr Flipper Man was in a mood and didn’t even greet anyone as he got in and set about getting his workout done.
Over in the fast lane I noticed the regulars doing their thing, while in our lane we had a few people that I rarely notice, but didn’t particularly care.
There was one man though. Just one man. He was swimming breaststroke and with his insanely long legs, his kicks seemed to reach over both lanes that were assigned to our group. Passing him was always going to be a problem. A problem, but not an impossible one.
It took a few laps before this particular problem arose for me.
I was hitting the last few repeats in my second set when I had to overtake him. I moved to the left. Thankfully he didn’t. The overtaking seemed like it was going to go smoothly as I managed to get next to his feet without any incident or scratches or broken arms or fingers or any such thing.
Then I took a breath to my right and saw stars and tasted blood and felt like someone had just sucker-punched me right in the jaw. I kept swimming, glad that the water would probably enter my goggles and hide the tears in my eyes. As I got to the end and therefore a rest stop, he pulled up and also stopped.
“Are you trying to bite me?" he asked, a slight smile on his face.
I’m sure he thought it was a tad of a joke, but my lips begged to differ. He pointed at his foot and I noticed the scratch that my unfortunate teeth must’ve left.
I nodded, smiled, started swimming again, afraid that if I rested any longer I’d have to contend with that mean left kick again.
Afterwards he asked whether I was okay before heading into the showers and I found that my lip was not as big as it felt. Instead it looked pretty normal, except when you look on the inside and noticed a teeny-tiny cut on my lower lip.
Not sure what I’m going to name him, but I guess that depends on whether I’ll run into him again!


