retardedness in the pool

my swim on tues was ridiculous.......completely ridiculous! so, i get to the pool and change quickly to get to the pool. the far left lane was open so i decide against my better judgement to use that one cause it's open. i say against my better judgement because the last few times i've been in this lane at this time of day (approx 6pm) i've run into a series of unfortunate incidents with elderly men who take it as their absolute right to be able to use the area at the base of the stairs as their space to tread water whenever the fuck they feel like it. so against my senses i decide why not?! i get in and do my 400 warm up and stop for a 10'' breather to check what i need to be doing next and when i turn around there is this elderly asian man treading water over 3/4 of the lane and he just looks stupidly up at me like wtf are you gonna do bout it?!! so i start off on my main set only to find that there's another elderly gentleman that decided to swim in the lane with me and is doing basically a frog kick. i attempt to get around him and managed to get kicked, maneuver myself half way under the lane line and into the lane to the right. i make it to the end of the pool and come back for my first 50 and find that the lane lines are disappearing!! oh fuck - water aerobics class :( shit shit shit!!

i hit the hot tub for a little bit and find that in 10 mins of the class only 4 people have shown. i ask the instructor who asks the class if it's ok that i take the last half of the back lane. she's fine with it and the class agrees and i'm off again! i'm swimming through a washing machine HATING it the whole time but thinking it's good practice for race day. all of a sudden i notice two new people have joined the class and the pudgier lady in the back has now taken it as her personal affront that i'm swimming during her class and thus proceeds to attempt to force me out of the pool by crowding my back half of the back lane. i'm practially swimming on pavement at this point but swim on non-the-less when to my chagrin there they are........dreadded foot cramps! shit shit shit!! well, at this point my spirit is pretty broken and i am afraid i'm going to have another foot episode like the last cramps that left me massaging my foot on the side of the pool for 15-20 minutes so i haul my butt out of the pool to the great satisfaction of the portly lady.

i only got in 1/3 of my planned swim but all things considered, i'm proud of the accomplishment!

~danban