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Anu Vaidyanathan: For the love of goggles
By Anu Vaidyanathan
3/6/2009 |
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Well.. it's nearly 6:40pm.. 20 seconds to it. Of course, I should be out riding but, I am inside typing, instead. That's OK as I am still on a high from yesterday’s long ride, which I NAILED and this morning’s epic swim. The swim should have been like any other swim, unremarkable, un-noticed and understated. However, today’s swim chose to be a huge pain in the ass. My roommate and her visitor celebrated Black Sunday yesterday, both getting speeding tickets close to two month’s rent in my books. I was thinking this ticket-able karma would pass on to me and drove very cautiously to the pool...don't want to be caught at 6am, more importantly, dont want to be a brown woman caught at 6am. There are no niceties then.
I got to the pool and sure enough, as usual, I did not have my ID card with me. No problem, Cath and Rach at the desk are often the nicest ladies one can meet and they let me in, as usual. I get to the deck and sure enough, I don't have my goggles or my cap. No problem! I was still in very good spirits and ran out to the car to get them. The car looked like a hurricane and a dumpster had passed it, all in one, and I could not find a f$%^ing pair of goggles OR an extra cap. Now, for a woman who has about two dozen of each apparata, this was terrible. I walked back to the reception, wondering about whether the cluster-f$%k was catching up to me and Cath gave me an extra cap and I had a pair of speedo goggles that I found under my seat to complete the makeup. Armed with these I ran to the pool.. sure enough, the goggles were broken. I tried fixing them for ten minutes (or what seemed like eternity) and that did not work.
Anyone who wears contact lenses can tell you how annoying this is! I was not to be outdone and got into the pool thinking that I would kick for 30 minutes and get out as that did not require any goggles and could be done with a board and fins. I started off and sure enough, the crazy coach on deck put a splashy swimmer in my lane. I am sure the coach told him to get in there as the slow and fast lanes were empty and the kid didn't think of taking either. He was definitely FAST and splashed all over the damm place, annoying me immensely. Suddenly I realized that to get OUT of the pool, I would need to swim to the stairs and that would require my dunking my head underneath the intervening lane ropes, minus goggles. This could not be achieved as the contacts were sure to be doomed. I tried to get the overweight lifeguard on deck to get me an extra pair and I was told to adjust my nose-piece...I was wondering what that meant and decided to fix my goggles while testing my tricep strength, by hanging on the pool wall.
By this time, the lifeguard and the coach had a meeting of minds and were chating away, pointing obsequiously in my direction. I knew they were talking about the non-existant nose-piece or earrings or whatever it is lifeguards and coaches onfer about at 7:30 in the morning. This was enough to set me off laughing as sometimes this coach behaves as if the pool is the Mississipi river dividing the fast and the slow, instead of Kerouac’s version that swept the United States of America. I laughed to myself and though the goggles were still leaking, finished a 2K swim because heck, that was what I was there to do.
It took about 10-12 minutes longer than it should have but, I did not care. It was one of my most gratifying workouts in a long time. Karma and work-ethic can be seperate, 90% of the time and should be, so that when the former interferes with the latter, we can go into lotus pose and call it “recovery” and do other things with our life.
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