Lap of Luxury

The madness of a triathlon starts with the swimming component. This is the part that intimidates me the least, as I am actually a pretty strong swimmer. The part that gets me a bit nervous is that not only is the swim in open water, but you start off swimming in a tight pack. When the weather warms up, I can practice swimming in open water, but I have no idea how I'm going to get used to swimming in the middle of a pack. I may have to ask you all to come along to practice one day!

When I started seriously planning to start training for this I quit my stinky broken gym and joined the fancy club across the street from my work. I have already told you about the cable TV and is if that wasn't enough...they also have unlimited towels and a ridiculous amount of free toiletries in the change room. I don't have to take anything with me! It's glorious. But the best part...are you ready?...wait for it....I get unrestricted access to the pool at the Royal York Fairmount right across the street. Which is beyond awesome. It has a lovely hot tub, a steam room, sauna, unlimited towels (and theirs even cover your bum, unlike the ones at the gym!) all the fixin's of a hotel bathroom in the change room and lemonade. Yeah, that's right; freshly squeezed lemonade. And the people are all friendly and walk around making sure you don't need anything. I'm doing laps in luxury! My only complaint is that it's only a 15 metre pool, which means I have to be really careful not to push off too hard because I find myself doing two strokes to get across. I always add an extra 4 laps to however many I'm supposed to be doing to account for my glide time. I am usually the only person in the pool, which is also a big plus.

All these amenities are making working out actually a treat. I don't miss the smells like foot, broken equipment, pre/post prison work-out gym in the slightest.