My late swim

Yesterday, I forgot to throw my swim gear in the car before work. When I discovered this (after parking my car in town) I was spewing. I usually go straight to the pool after work. So, this meant a trip home before I could go to the pool. So the plan was to go home, help out at 'feeding time at the zoo' for a while, see all the kids and catch up with their day, then drive back to the pool. Well that went pretty well, besides it being a bit of a struggle to sit and watch everyone else eat! It was good to catch up with what all the girls had done that day.

At about 645pm, I headed off to the pool for about an hours swim. The Bold Park pool closes at 8pm. Anyway, I had just jumped into the water and a voice from the next lane said 'hello Darin", it was Sam, Johns wife. Without contact lenses in I never notice people I know at the pool! So we had a quick chat which was cool, but I started to get cold standing there and kinda cut the conversation a bit short. Time was ticking away also.

I got into my session with 4x100m warm up, but was having a few issues with my goggles, so i stopped a few times to adjust etc. Then I did 10x150m & 15" rest, as 100m hard, 50 easy. I find it is very easy to lose count of these laps, as you end up at the other end of the pool every 2nd rest. Anyway, got through those and then noticed that the pool had thinned out a heap. In fact I was the last one there. I didn't look at my watch, but decided I best haul arse and finish ASAP. I was supposed to do 3x200's and 200 c/d. But made the decision on the fly to just swim 800m as quick as I could, without blowing too hard. I new I was running out of time, but kept swimming and counting down the laps. I tried not to look up when I got back to the start end of the pool, in case someone was there and told me to get out. I noticed that they had moved some of the lane ropes, in preparation for the pool covers to go one. I ploughed on, really wanting to get the last few laps completed, as I hate not finishing what I planned.

I was on my 2nd last lap, heading back to the start when I saw a pool attendant standing on the edge of the pool waiting for me! Doh! Busted! So I surfaced and stopped the clock. I then just more or less blurted out "One more lap" and she said "you are kidding..." I said "just give me 100 more seconds - I don't need the change rooms or anything, what the time?" She said 8 o'clock and didn't really wait for a further comment and took off, as fast as I could go! Well I powered up and back, stopped my watch then jumped out of the pool. The time was 8pm and a few seconds on my watch (which is almost spot on to the ABC radio news). I don't think I as very popular, as they were wheeling the big covers up to the end of the pool as I was drying myself! I thanked them and was real sucky and then took off! Opening hours say until 8pm, no where does it say you have to be out of the pool before 8!

Anyway, was a good swim - 2.8km in 50min.