This Wednesday i received my Vollkörper-Kondom (or wetsuit as it might be more commonly known) - which is just marvelous, i am very excited about it. I was so excited to try it out in fact that after doing a BRICK (another nonsensical acronym - i know everyone remembers the SKPS one - that helps the world by further pushing along misunderstandings and general confusion) which is a short version for (and I am still not a hundred percent sure about this) describing either the transition period during a triathlon, meaning from swimming to biking or biking to swimming, or the fact that your training will involve not only one event but two back to back with a quick transition (thus simulating, in a leisurely way, the actual race) .... so the point i am trying to make is this: i was excited about trying my full-body condom like flotation devise that even tough on wed. we did a BRICK (involving 23 miles of bike riding followed by a 1mile run) which was followed by an enjoyable trip to an italien place with some of the triathletes where we stayed till about 11pm, i decided to suddenly wake-up an hour before my alarm clock was set to go off the next morning - which was 5:30 am and decided -- ahh screw sleeping lets go swimming.
This is remarkable for two reasons: a this marked the first time i joined the 'early' or 'advanced' or 'snobby' swim group (i usually join the 40 to 80 year old swim group that starts an hour later where i stand out by still getting my butt kicked by said 40 to 80 year olds - but again - thats not the point ...) and b: since starting to practice it has been my goal to go the two sessions each week (always Tuesdays and Thursdays) but, shockingly, it never really happened before - on another side note: i did show up but off course i did not swim with the snobs (some might argue i could not - which is a fair point) and just did my own little practice
But yes - after doing something that some might, mercifully, call swimming for about an hour i pulled out my wetsuit to try it out and test it. Now this seems easy and straightforward, one would think, but well once thinks that about a lot of things and it somehow turns out to be a bit more complicated. Case in point: actually getting on a wet suit, while wet (one of the advanced swimmers later had this insightful tip: don't try putting on a wetsuit when wet ... and i cooly replied with my own 'schlagkraeftigen gegenargument' and said: 'ahhhhhhh' and struggled on. But yes after more then 5 and less then 10 minuets of pulling and figthing with myself and my new wet suit i managed to put it on .... and man these things are tight! Not in the 'uhh this is soo tight' aka cool meaning ... no just freakishly tight (but i am sure i looked unbelievable sexy in this thing - no question about it really ...)
then came the big jumped into the water and i was floating - literally floating which instantly reminded me of the milky-way commercials they always ran in Germany (will try to find that and link to it - and the german/european milky-way is soooooooooo much better then shit they sell here in the USA - it so sad, i feel americans are deprived of any type of good chocolate/candy .. the chocolate selection/quality/variety - just like with cheese and yogurt's - is beyond horrible! I just wants to cry every time i am in a supermarket buying food) with their slogan which went something like "so much milk, so fluffy it floats in milk' (meaning the candy bar - and if i can just say - thats a horrible try at a) remembering that slogan and b) putting it into english ... but oh well - i figure one of our now 5(!) readers here will know what i mean ... the second - not so instant - thing that 'popped' into my head was that this feels like swimming in Lake Retba (somewhere near Dakar, Senegal) where i had been probably close to 18 years ago - its such a bizarre feeling (side note: swimming in just a wetsuit vs. doing so with scuba equipment is completely different feeling ... when u 'scuba' you never actually hit the water without all sorts of weights and heavy objects on you ...) and the actual swimming feels very strange ... u feel slow, but somehow move faster then if you would not wear this thing + it keeps you from freezing/drowning during the swim ...so overall quite a positive experience this whole 'lets try out my wetsuit' thing ... and btw that thursday (yesterday) evening we pursued another BRICK - and this time it ended up being a 35miles (50km!!) ride - which was amazing with temps of 23 to 25 C - followed by a 2mile run ...
you are crazy...kc
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