One element of my adult life that I feel is consistent enough for me to consider a regularity is that I frequent Adult Lap Swim at two of New York's public pools. When I first mentioned this to an a high level swimming colleague, the answer was disbelief ala "You swim in public pools??"
But in reality, the New York Parks department is truly amazing. It's $150 year to have access to a slew of pools and gyms throughout the city and outdoor pools are free in the summer, including McCarren's epic pool in Williamsburg that (thank you!!) the city invested $50M in: http://www.mccarrenpark.com/.
When I was a young teenage swimming thousands of yards a day, I remember seeing all of the out of shape swim parents watching us. At about 13 I thought to myself "I should consider doing 1,000 yards a day when I'm an adult. That is easy for any real swimmer and truly a good workout if done consistently by an adult." Thus in my ideal world, every evening I don't have an event or dinner to attend; I go and swim my 1,000 yards. Sometimes more; but always at least that. It's such a quick workout at the end of the day for someone like me / most of us that has limited time and always feels great.
As someone who has grown up (literally) in and around pools; it is an atmosphere that I feel completely comfortable in and feel like I have an understanding of the basics in running a pool. Particularly in my music business career but hopefully in life; I'm all about things that make sense. However, my experiences at Lap Swim as an adult, don't always make sense. I can't guarantee I'll commit, but I will try and blog about my "Adventures in Lap Swimming" from time to time; even if it's just via Tweet and even if Mike Gustafson is my only reader (not a bad sole reader though :)).
The first thing to address is the signs that indicate "Fast," "Medium" or "Slow" at Adult Lap Swim. Speed is of course relative. As soon as I start to get frustrated with not-so-fast people in the Fast lane, some giant experienced male swimmer comes in and completely dominates my workout, literally swimming circles around me. However, to really swim in the "Fast" lane at lap swim, I believe the following traits should be adhered to:
1. No sort of "mask" should be worn. Your call if you want to go sans goggles in a chlorinated pool, but masks will not be tolerated as it doesn't make sense for any reason.
2. I feel the same way about "trunks." Yes, there are rare exceptions, but even the fastest swimmer is going to be creating a lot of drag for themselves if they're straight up wearing shorts.
3. One of the Metropolitan pool lifeguards (the lifeguards there are a definitely another blog post at some point...) disagreed with me on this today, but generally I think that anyone who is unable to do a flip-turn should not be in the "Fast" lane. Consider it the equivalent of a lap swimming time standard.
These are just a few of the requisites I think should be in place to do one's laps in the "Fast" lane at lapswim. There are more. And when I thought this the other day at McCarren when there were some particularly slow trunk wearing / no flip-turning / mask people (triple whammy!) in the Fast lane, it turns out 2008 Olympian and super elite 200 Flyer (aka my event) was in the lane next to me. Instant Karma for me internally ragging on the lap swimmers in my lane as she can definitely kick my butt.
That's all for now on Adult Lap Swim, but there will be more on this hopefully. Topics include reactions to my daily 200 fly, the aforementioned indoor pool lifeguards, the "Aquatic Specialists" at the outdoor pool (I want one of their shirts please) as well as the rule at the indoor pools in which one must dry off after the shower and before they walk across the locker room. This requires a lot of shower gear / towel planning and any violation incurs the wrath of 2 Parks department women who literally stand near the showers instilling fear into any lap swimmer who dares to violate this policy.
In other news, I started Internet dating this weekend. Being a ridiculous planner, all that means is that I finally set up a profile (I did once before with friends, but my energy wasn't in it). I am ALL FOR internet dating as a concept, particularly for people that don't want to like just go to bars; which can also include older / real adults. My hesitations included not wanting to (gasp!) be on the computer at the end of the day as we all stare at screens all day and feeling like I was filling out a Myspace profile for myself (which I believe stems from OkCupid's blue color-scheme reminding me of Tom-era Myspace in it's heyday).
However, it's great to see how the normalcy of Internet dating has evolved and the whole thing made me smile. I can see how like just about everything else in our lives, there is a way to integrate online dating into how I usually meet guys and it's nice to mix it up. Frankly I just like the idea of interfacing with people who I don't work with as my career is inherently social by nature, therefore I know and meet tons of people in general; but ultimately it is work related. I saw a guy on OkCupid who gives people sailing lessons around the New York harbor. How fun! Hopefully he doesn't also work for a music publisher as well or something.
If anything, I couldn't help reading up on the founders of OkCupid as the site is definitely cool / normal and obviously wildly successful, particularly in Brooklyn / NYC. I thought the site getting bought for $50M (apparently the number of the day) seemed low, but it turns out one of the founders is now the CEO of Match.com; so clearly there is a larger game plan at work. I'm sure Sam Yagan is smart enough to understand the brand / marketplace difference of a site even called something like "Match.com" as opposed to the OkCupid's (dare I say it!) hipster vibe. Apparently as long Christian Rudder's creative vision continues to be incorporated, OkCupid's vibe won't die. Fingers crossed.
Love,
Emily
P.S. - The photo above isn't of me but came up in Google Images upon searching "lap swim internet dating."
