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Swimming with animals

I just finished reading The Devil's Teeth, a book about shark researchers at the Farallon Islands. In the book, the divers and surfers who have been in the water with great white sharks (and survived) invariably say that you can feel the sharks' presence before you see them.

I had a sort of similar experience today. I was in my usual swimming pool, not in the 55-degree Pacific, but I was in the middle of a set of 15x100 when I felt a presence next to me. It was like a torpedo had been launched in the next lane over. And I knew this could only mean one thing: I was swimming with Oleg.

Oleg is my masters swim coach. I'm told he was the national breaststroke champion of a former Soviet state back in his day. He is a bear of a man and I bet he could make it all the way across the pool just by pushing off and maybe dolphin kicking once or twice. He is a force of nature.

Normally he coaches from the deck. I've seen him jump in every now and then and swim a few laps. Today I got in the pool an hour before the masters workout because we're leaving soon for the weekend. And I had the pleasure of Oleg swimming not just the same workout at the same time, but stroke for stroke alongside me. I was swimming hard freestyle 100s; he was doing breaststroke at what was probably a moderate pace for him.

"You are taking too much rest!" He said as I watched the clock. (Imagine the Eastern Bloc accent.) In truth, I started off at 10 seconds rest (as it was written in his workout up on the whiteboard) but increased my speed so much that I was getting 15 seconds of rest by the 10th repeat. I shortened the interval. No slacking for me.

So much for sneaking in a quick swim. I did the full 3000 yards and as Oleg got out to coach the noon swim, he said, "You're staying for the masters workout, right?"

I laughed. And then got out of the pool.

July 25, 2008 1:39 PM