Until an offer popped into my FB feed from some people called "Brighton Tri Club". I hadn't heard of them before. I knew "Brighton Phoenix Triathlon", "Brighton Tri Race Series" and "Brighton Triathlon Race Series". So who are these people? Splitters?
But it was an offer I couldn't refuse. Well, I could, but I shouldn't, so I didn't. It was a ten week course in how to become a better swimmer for £30. That's not £30 each week, but £30 in total. That's..... <reaches for calculator> £3.33 per week*
This offer went on to say, and I am quoting word for word (actually cutting and pasting)...
"The club welcomes triathletes of ALL ABILITIES and we provide a great environment for improvement, but we do ask that you are able to swim 200m (8 lengths) front crawl without stopping. However, it doesn’t have to be fast or pretty!"
I liked the bit about all abilities. So much so that I made it red and bold. So much so that I didn't feel at all ashamed at filling in the application form honestly, especially when it came to the bit where it asked me "exactly how crap are you?" but in number format... "If you can manage to swim 100m all in one go without drowning, how long does it take you?". Well, I've been desperately trying to swim 10 lengths in less than 6 minutes and I'm getting very close. That means that I should be able to work out how long it takes to swim 4 lengths without reaching for a calculator......<reaches for fingers.....ok, not possible to reach for own fingers, was actually trying to get calculator, but now I've been caught out>.... um..... ("Show your workings!") 6/10 x 4 = 2.4 minutes. Round up to 2mins 30 to allow for almost drowning part way through.
So when I got myself to that first lesson I wasn't immediately filled with dread. Until the other swimmers turned up. I recognised some of them from the Brighton Tri Group, the Group of Brighton Triathletes, and even the People's Front of Judea. And they were all very very fast. They should have been giving the lessons. Dread began to nip at my toes.
We then had to get changed and come back to the pool. In my absolute delight at doing mental maths I had completely forgotten that I had to squeeze myself into a swimming costume in front of other people. Dread slinked its way up to my (exposed) cellulite.
We were then all lined up by the side of the pool, like the von Trapp family singers. The captain, oops, I mean trainer, asked us for rank, file and medical histories. He got to me and we both sighed. I told him about the asthma and the Type 1 diabetes. He said that he knew IronPeople with worse and they didn't use it as an excuse. My ego started wimpering.
We were then split into different groups, depending on what time we had put for our 100metre dash. The nazi officer, oops, I mean trainer came to me and, I swear, I'm not making this up, he said "are you SURE you mean 2min 30 seconds? That's really slow, you know". My ego left the building without even getting wet.
The rest of me stayed and doggy paddled away furiously. I imagined I was punching the trainer, and I beat my personal best.
* No I haven't gone bonkers. And neither has my calculator. I'm not going next week because if I wanted to pay someone to insult me, I'll go visit one of my ex husbands. Actually, that's not completely true. It's my anniversary next week - I almost forgot. If only I could remember exactly what it was that I'm supposed to be celebrating and with who. I do know that it will involve curly wurlies and absolutely no swimming whatsoever.
