Swimming hands

I was determined to do a long, relaxed swim today. After getting to run, as minimal of a time as it was, for the past three days, I knew I should give my left calf a break today. No biking, no walking. Just swim. I didn't have a time limit, so I wanted to do a good, solid, swim.

I slipped into the pool and looked at the clock. 3pm. I started swimming, mostly easy laps, and before I knew it I was at 1000 yards. I threw some faster laps in and decided to alternate some fast and slow laps to get me to 2000 yards. When I hit 2000, I took a break and looked at the clock. 3:39 pm. (I know that's not fast for some of you who read this blog -- but without swimming hard the whole way, it was a pretty solid swim for me.)

And after adjusting my goggles, I took a look at my hands. They were so wrinkly! How do people swim for sooooooooo much longer than this? Do their hands get all wrinkly, too? Or after a while do your hands have a higher tolerance to the water and take longer to wrinkle?

I thought about the wrinkles for the next 500 yards. I vowed to take a picture of my hands when I got out of the pool. I wondered how long it would be until they unwrinkled.

I swam another 500 yards, and decided that was enough for today. I was getting hungry and, quite frankly, a little bored. And I was starting to get nervous that my hands might be wrinkled until Saturday. 3:59 pm. Not bad for 3000 yards and a (very) short break in the middle.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to take the picture of my hands all wrinkly -- by the time I got from the pool to the shower to dressed, the wrinkles weren't as pronounced. And I thought the other women in the locker room might question what I was doing with a camera...

But if you look closely in the pictures above, you can see some swimming hands anyway -- hands that swam farther today than they ever have before.