Wednesday, November 29, 2006

My initiation for Masters Swimming is finally complete (I guess?)



I've been swimming with the Masters team since September, and while everyone is friendly enough I haven't really felt like one of the guys. It doesn't bother me because this was never meant to be a social activity. I joined Masters for extra cardio, and I'm happy with the slow lane clique. As long as I'm not in anyone else's way I'm content.

The last week of the month, practice is always packed with the usual crowd plus new people dropping in to try it out. The slow lane ended up with so many people that Cheryl had to move the newbies to other (faster) lanes. After about 300 yards of the warmup our entire lane just kind of fell into sync. Our workout was a little shorter than the rest of the team, but we cranked out our 3500 yards in 1hr 15min and finished right along with everybody else. Less than 1/6 of the team is competitive tri-athletes or recent former NCAA swimmers, everyone else is 10+ years off the swim team or just fitness swimmers. The middle of the workout was (15) x 50 yard sprints, and by the end people were really feeling it.

A bunch of us ended up in the hot tub afterwards, and it was much more social than it usually is. People usually talk in twos and threes for a couple minutes and move on; this is the first time in three months I've seen 10 or 15 people have the same conversation and carry it into the locker room.

I realized the velvet ropes were behind me when some of the old timers, who were discussing work (some kind of consulting practice, not the same one but similar industry I guess), were talking about wanting a secretary but not being a position to hire someone who's 100% overhead. They mentioned a shared acquaintance who occasionally does work for them on the side, which then degenerated into nasty blow job jokes. I was really just standing there getting dressed, but I guess creeps can smell each other, because all the sudden I was on the inside...

A perfect score on your PSATs and a National Merit Scholar, nobody knows your name. You fuck one goat...

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