Ill Concieved Plans Poorly executed

Swimathon

Counting, it's something I should have learnt to do reasonably well at school. In normal life, outside of the lycra clad confines of sport, I can count as well as the next person; so why is it that when I'm in a swimming pool I lose count. I really don't know.

It was time for an experiment. Let's see if I can count to 200. No, that would be far too hard. Let's see if I can count to twenty. That'll be easier and I'll do it 10 times. A bit of maths here but that should add up to two hundred. Just to make it harder I'll swim up and down and on the 20th lap look up at the clock to see if I'm maintaining a steady rhythm. That sounded like a feasible plan. Now all it needs is a bit of independent verification, the man counting the laps volunteered to tap me on the head at half way and ten laps from the end. Sorted.

The experiment started in the Kings Centre at 5:30 on a Sunday night to the sound of a hooter. The first problem of course is where you count the length. When you start you are on the first length but can only count it when you get to then end by which time you're on the second length. This causes two numbers to float around in my head and get confused. For some reason I started counting in metres, just to make it harder, and only counting after two lengths so I had to remember the number for longer. Well that's sensible. Even with all this confusion the first four five hundreds went by at a nice even pace. It was a bit of a surprise then to be told that I was half way though after 10 lengths into the next 500. It was when I passed someone, my mind went to mush and I forgot which length I was on, There where three others in my lane and I was passing them lots. The next 500 seemed to take an eternity and the clock just laughed at my feeble efforts. The next milestone was coming up. The 4km mark. This was the end of know territory and starting of a delve into the unknown. Of course that could have happened a while ago as I was losing the mental capacity to count by this point. I'd lost it big time at the 10 to go point and If I'd been trying to count the lengths my self I would have swum a extra 10. I did manage to count down though.

So there we have it, I can't count whilst immersed in water.