Blog of Peter Torr Smith

That's my new suit... (but not me

A few months back I started swimming in the pool to get fit, twice a week when the pool was open the full 50M.  I quickly got up to doing about 1.2ks without stopping, and am really enjoying it.  I gave up counting laps and just focused on swimming a good solid 30 minutes.

Anyway, a friend of mine started joining me, and then challenged me to enter a short ocean swim (the Oriental Bay www.splashanddash.co.nz), and being only 730M I thought “easy”.  I hired a swiming wetsuit from the Swim Shop in Oriental Bay for 3 days so I could do some test swims, and nearly thought I was going to die on my first swim on my own on Monday night out and around the fountain.  Tuesday back again, but this time to do a 2hr swim clinic, and I did a really good swim, getting my breathing and rhythm and navigation working well.

Then the night of the race and I just bombed… was even worse than my first night (I guess from the crowd, the adrenalin, and the not so great weather) and I just couldn’t get into the rhythm and was sort of panicky each time I put my head underwater.  The atmosphere and people and prize giving were great, but I was really annoyed at myself that I just couldn’t get into the groove.

So anyway, tonight after work I rushed home to grab the wetsuit to get it back in time, not sure if was going to take up their offer to buy the suit with the hire fee taken off as a discount, so I didn’t take anything down with me such as goggles and cap.  But as I got there I decided I wasn’t going to be beaten by the water and I wouldn’t get any better without having a wetsuit to train in, so I decided to buy it.  To cut a long story short, they convinced me to upgrade to the next model up, the Blueseventy Synergie, still using the hire discount, and it came with a pair of goggles and a cap.  So with the excitement of a new suit with more shoulder flexibility, and as I had the suit on from trying it, I decided to use the goggles and cap and head out for a swim to try practice my breathing and rhythm and navigation.

I had a great swim of I’d guess 500M (around the 2 rafts) and came back in buzzing after doing really well with my technique. So up  to the outside showers to strip out of the suit, give it a rinse and head home.  Of course I end up coming out of the shower and towelling off and talking to this woman who was about to go for a bike ride and who had also done the race last night.  We talked for about 5 minutes with me just standing their in my togs as you do…. except it wasn’t until I actually got home that I realized that I wasn’t wearing my togs, but a nice pair of very-undie-looking-boxer-undies!!  As I had done this routine for the last 3 days with my boxer togs on, I hadn’t clicked that I had only tried the wetsuit on with my undies underneath.  It’s not like they were plain black undies, but no, a very cheerful pair of most-definitely-briefs!!   I’m not sure what the woman must have thought of me standing their just in my undies talking to her as if nothing was out of place!!

I had a good laugh at home once I realized what I’d done so thought I’d share it with you all.

Now I’ve got a kit-bag I’ll keep my togs in there with my caps and goggles and will try not to show off my undies again in public (too often!!)

See Togs, togs, undies

No, mine weren’t quite skimpy budgie smugglers, but you get the idea