Splish, splash, sniff

I decided to make swimming my only workout today, and hoped to be able to do 30 laps, or maybe even 40. I've done 20 a few times, after lifting weights, and it hasn't been too hard, so I figured, more than 20 without weightlifting beforehand would be a snap.

I can't say it was a snap, but I did swim 30 laps this morning. I drowned a couple of times, and had a very annoying stretch when I couldn't get my goggles to seal correctly, but once I fixed the goggles and remembered that I was supposed to exhale when my face was in the water, I was fine.

I'm essentially a self-taught swimmer, and I don't pretend to be good at it. I can do a serviceable front crawl with rotary breathing, and the backstroke, which I use every fifth length to give myself a little break. I usually breathe with each crawlstroke, but was experimenting with breathing every two strokes, and was able to do that pretty well for about half the time I was swimming.

I had a lane to myself today, which was a luxury. It was in the middle of the pool, though, not on a wall, and I did get a little freaked out about the deep end when I first started swimming. I figured out if I just don't look at the whole big pool and all that water -- if I just keep my eyes on my own little lane stripe, I'm fine. As long as I don't look at the drain, either.

***
Since I had a fair amount of pool water up my nose earlier today, and survived, I decided to try out my new neti pot a little bit ago. My brother, a longtime neti user, gave it to me last weekend, and I've been wanting to try it, so I finally did.

Of course, I did it wrong at first, and had all kinds of salt water down my throat. Yuck. But I got the hang of it, and it was okay.

I can't say whether I'm smelling smells I've never smelled before, or anything like that, but I'll continue to check in with nosewitness bulletins now and again.