Danger, Will Robinson!

Something strange happens to me when I exercise harder than usual. I get all fuzzy in my head. Take today, for example. I can't for the life of me remember if I swam for 40 minutes or for 50. It must be the chlorine fumes.

I didn't feel like swimming this morning, so I tried to let fate decide if I'd do it. Or rather, I left it up to J. Did he need the car today or would he take the bike to work instead? My swimming session depended on it. No car, no swimming. How else would I get to the swimming pool? It was a warped logic, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

J took the bike to work, so I had to go swimming, cursing under my breath. Once there, I started off easy. I'm kind of lazy when it comes to sports. I don't like to exert myself to the point where my heart tries to dig itself out of my chest with a spoon. I can run 50 km, but I try to avoid running even just one kilometre fast. I like finding a nice, even rhythm. It's meditative.

As I swam lazily from one end of the swimming pool to the other, I caught a blur in the corner of my eye. A middle aged guy free-styled past me, fast as a torpedo. Why he chose the pensioner lane to do this and not the empty fast lane is beyond me. I reached the end of the swimming pool, turned around and switched to backstroke. Suddenly I felt something punching or kicking me hard on my foot. The middle aged guy must have swum past me in the middle of the lane so fast that he didn't have time to register that I was in front of him, let alone that he hit me. Pensioner hour at the pool is dangerous to your health, folks. Or can at least cause ugly bruises.

In a moment I'm taking my bicycle to the bike shop for a make-over. I don't like having to depend on public transport or the car to get to places, and my bike needs some tender loving care after having been idle all winter. Besides, if all goes according to plan, I might be joining my running buddies in their long run from Varberg to Gothenburg in April, and since I can't run the 90-odd kilometres, I am considering cycling them. Nothing is allowed to break down then; my bike needs to be in perfect condition.