Since we started training back in November for the Ironman, every swim that Brian and I have done has been together. We've done a few in the morning, but most swims have been after my ridiculously long and exhausting work days. We typically meet up at the pool around 4:40 (I know this is still early for most people, but after 8 hours working with urban teens, it is a VERY looooong day), swim for about an hour, and then drive back home in the worst part of rush hour traffic.
Swimming makes for an incredibly long day for me. The only silver lining to it all is that I get to see Brian, and he's going to share in the same hard workout that I'm about to do. I feel less like I need to rush to get home since he's right there swimming next to me.
***Before I forget: One important piece to the story--Brian is a firefighter. His schedule works like this: 24 straight hours of work, and then 72 hours (if you're bad at math, that's 3 days) off.***
Lately though, Brian has been really frustrated that when we swim, it seems to take up his whole day--he has to leave the house at 4 and then doesn't usually get home until around 6:30, fighting rush hour traffic and the busiest hours at the pool even though he's not working that day. He complained about it almost every time we swam. I finally got sick of it this week and told him to swim whenever he wanted to so I don't have to listen to the complaining. I was really only half serious because I had just gotten fed up with it. Its not like I wake him up at 5AM so he can do all my other workouts with me. Just swimming. Also, having a partner there motivates me and keeps me pushing on to finish the workout, not just get home. I just thought he would finally see the bigger picture.
So today instead of leaving my bathing suit and swim stuff at home for Brian to take to the pool, I brought it to work. I still wasn't sure whether he would swim with me as planned or go his own way. At about 12:00, I got a text message saying that he'd done 2500m. Great.
School was awful. The behavior issues I had during the day were almost as bad as the nightmares that I had last night (no, I didn't make that up, I really dreamed that I was yelling at kids). Then, I had ridiculously low numbers in study hall for the football players. So unsurprisingly, all I wanted to do at the end of the day was drive home. Did I? No, I'm not that pathetic. I still dragged my butt over to the school.
However, I was so upset about having another hard day that I couldn't focus on my swim. I was so stressed out that I must have been hyperventilating or something because I couldn't get my breathing relaxed enough to feel comfortable. Finally, after I struggled through a mile, I called it a quits. I had planned to do 2500m, but I couldn't wrap my head around pushing through another 1000. I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, "suck it up, slacker!! You're tougher than that!" I know, that's what I was trying to tell myself too for the whole swim. Truth is that there are still 10 weeks of school left, and its really hard to push through every single day.
I don't blame Brian for being annoyed at the time that I have to swim during the day. I agree it really sucks. The last thing I want to do is swim with a bunch of old farts doing the slowest breast stroke possible (C'mon man! We're in the medium lane! You belong in the leisure lane!), and then drive home in rush hour traffic. But I can't help but be frustrated by the fact that now the only work out that we do together is our long ride.
Does anyone else have this issue with their spouse? Please tell me I'm not the only one. Also, if you're on the flip-side of the argument, I'd love to hear your side so I can get over being frustrated!
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