One night, not so long ago, when I was swimming my second workout of the day in a busy 25 meter pool at the Club that I regularly swim (most of the time on a different schedule!), all 6 lanes where rather crowded with two or more swimmers, except for one which had only one swimmer. I kindly asked the gentlemen if I could join him and we agreed to swim side by side rather than anti-clockwise as indicated for that lane. I jumped in the lane and started my warm-up as planned for that session by my coach, very soon I was starting to lap the good fellow. I carried on and started swimming my main set, until I noticed that I was actually swimming on my own, cool I thought to my self!
Guess what? The gentlemen stopped me at one of my turns as he had been observing me, and said to me, I can see straight away that you are a triathlete! I was surprised, not by the statement, but for the fact that he actually stopped me to say such! I was so surprised that I just kept looking at him, he kept talking and talking, saying that he used to be a swimming coach at Club La Santa in Lanzarote, Spain. He asked if I knew where that was? He then continued to tell me that he had been counting my stroke average and that they were quite good, but I needed to improve! I looked amazed to my friend, pool mate watch at my wrist and started to click on my log statistics for that workout and I was within an average stroke count of 11 and an efficiency rate of 41, I was warming-up after all, building into my main set! After almost three minutes of swimming rhetoric and a geographic lesson about the Canary Islands in Spain, I was told by the old gentlemen that if I continue improving I could make it to the top! PERIOD! I only had words to say thank you for your advice, and have a good night as he walked away! While I returned into my training bit, I was thinking to my self... gosh, the purpose of me being there in that crowed pool with all level of abilities mixed, was, is and it will be always with the purpose of improve, no matter what! I'm kind of used to these kind of comments every so often! One time I was even told by some one, acting ignorant (but not that ignorant!) that I would never make it to the pro ranks! How funny is that when actually I have been a pro now for quite awhile! Morale of the story is anyway: Always keep smiling and being polite, as it doesn't hurt listen to people , even if they do not have the slightest idea about what they are talking about! :)
Guess what? The gentlemen stopped me at one of my turns as he had been observing me, and said to me, I can see straight away that you are a triathlete! I was surprised, not by the statement, but for the fact that he actually stopped me to say such! I was so surprised that I just kept looking at him, he kept talking and talking, saying that he used to be a swimming coach at Club La Santa in Lanzarote, Spain. He asked if I knew where that was? He then continued to tell me that he had been counting my stroke average and that they were quite good, but I needed to improve! I looked amazed to my friend, pool mate watch at my wrist and started to click on my log statistics for that workout and I was within an average stroke count of 11 and an efficiency rate of 41, I was warming-up after all, building into my main set! After almost three minutes of swimming rhetoric and a geographic lesson about the Canary Islands in Spain, I was told by the old gentlemen that if I continue improving I could make it to the top! PERIOD! I only had words to say thank you for your advice, and have a good night as he walked away! While I returned into my training bit, I was thinking to my self... gosh, the purpose of me being there in that crowed pool with all level of abilities mixed, was, is and it will be always with the purpose of improve, no matter what! I'm kind of used to these kind of comments every so often! One time I was even told by some one, acting ignorant (but not that ignorant!) that I would never make it to the pro ranks! How funny is that when actually I have been a pro now for quite awhile! Morale of the story is anyway: Always keep smiling and being polite, as it doesn't hurt listen to people , even if they do not have the slightest idea about what they are talking about! :)
Posts
