Lapped.

"There's always room for improvement.  It's the biggest room in the house."  

-Louise Heath Leber

Tonight at Masters, there was a guy with his own lane and his own 'long course' workout.  Naive and curious, I asked if I could join him, while the rest of the team did shorter sets with more breaks in between.  He welcomed me and was friendly, and then the hell began.  After the 600 yd warm-up (this was an all-out sprint for me, basically to stay close to his feet), I knew why the rest of the team had left this man alone.  He obviously had missed his flight to the Olympic trials and decided he would just stay local and swim Masters instead.


Next, we did 2 x 500s, the 1st was a swim set, and the 2nd was a pull set.  During the pull set, as the distance increased, he gradually kept gaining on me.  I was red-lining the entire time, and eventually the time came when I stopped at the wall to let him go ahead of me.   I had been lapped!  We finished the entire set of 3400 yds in 45 minutes.  I would have vomited on the pool deck, but luckily didn't have anything in my stomach since I came straight from work.


I love this sport because there is always room for improvement.  Our "ultimate potential" as athletes is an elusive target, but in fact, this is a good thing.  In the words of the great Chuckie V, "If we knew we had capped out our potential, we'd be a lot less happy, as there'd be little to strive toward, and little to hope for.  Remember, the journey is the destination."


And perhaps the above demonstrates why we show up to the pool deck, day after day, rain or shine.  By chasing our ultimate potential, we hope that we will end up lapping the uninspired and stagnant version of ourselves with our old dreams and stale goals.