The Green Goblin Blog

When Samantha was growing up I took her to the local pool reasonably often. After a while I took the lazy way out and signed her up for swimming lessons so I didn't have to bother getting in the pool - I could instead read newspapers in the viewing room and collect her when she'd finished. Not always easy to get a window seat as they usually went early to chatting mothers.
Samantha is still working up through the classes (although the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease has given her pause for thought) so I haven't really been swimming for quite a while. Apart from the occasional Centerparcs break or when I tried to smash my coccyx in Finland, I haven't been in a swimming pool for years.
For Mayday we let Samantha choose what to do so off we went to Bracknell Leisure Centre and a tough 90 minutes in the pool. I thought that cycling to work meant I used my leg muscles regularly but I was soon to discover how wrong I was. After about 20m of racing down the the pool meant my upper arms and lower legs were burning and cramping respectively. How am I supposed to keep up my Fast Show "Competitive Dad" persona if I can't outstrip my 15-year old daughter?
So we'll all be back (even Sue) in a few weeks for another session of finding which other muscles we haven't been using recently.