Chrissy Does Chelsea

I couldn’t resist. It was Sunday and I hadn’t swum in two days. The public pools didn’t have lap swimming till 11 am. I’d exposed my naked body to public view the night before. I had to swim, if only to convince myself that I was still making an effort.

So I dropped the 50 bucks for a day pass at Chelsea Piers. I figured: I’d saved 40 dollars the night before because D. and I, having opted for audience participation (see previous entry), hadn’t had to pay the $20-per-person ticket price to see Leaves of Grass. So really I was only paying $10 to use the Chelsea Piers athletic facility.

The plan was to arrive at 8, when the place opened, but any plan I make involving New York City public transportation usually goes awry at some point, and this one was no exception. And the path to the pool, if you approach on foot instead of driving in through the parking lot – who drives anywhere in Manhattan? – isn’t well-marked, so I had to wander around the building a bit before figuring out where I was supposed to go.

First I walked past the yachts. Big yachts. On one of them, a trim young blonde guy with Harvard crew good looks, in navy-blue slacks and a tapered bone-white sweater, was standing on deck. He smiled and waved at me as I passed by. I waved back, wondering if he was just being friendly or had something more in mind, but deciding not to embarrass myself, and mindful of the fact that I was on a mission, I kept walking.

At the front desk, I handed over my credit card, to which the attendant graciously posted a $50 charge, and was issued a robe. A lightweight, cotton, terry-cloth robe. So I guess the $50 buys you something. The robe had two advantages, I discovered. First, it kept me covered up on the roughly quarter-mile hike from the men’s locker room to the pool deck, along the second-floor elevated walkway (with Hudson River views) that runs above the first-floor sea of treadmills, elliptical trainers and rowing machines. Second, the robe had pockets, so it gave me someplace to put the key to my lock; I didn’t have to tie it onto the string of my bathing suit.

Locker 69 was available. I took that as a good omen.

The pool was everything about.com had promised, and more. Six lanes, each a familiar 25 yards long, each able to accommodate two swimmers before anyone had to start swimming in circles. Overcrowding was not an issue at 8:30 am on a Sunday morning in Chelsea. And the view was even more spectacular than I imagined it would be. The facility is on a pier, and the pool is at the far end, jutting out into the water, so the view isn’t just at one end, it’s on three sides.

I ended up in the lane all the way over on the river side of the pool, which was great for scenery, but did have one slight problem. Ladders stick out into the lane, so when you do the fly, if you pay more attention to your swimming than to the ladders, you occasionally smash your hand into one of them. But that’s what ice packs are for.

Still, I achieved two new post-surgical milestones: 200 yards of continuous freestyle and 75 yards of continuous fly. The freestyle was fine. I could have kept going past 200, but I wanted to focus on the fly. I did some 25s, a couple of 50s, with lots of resting in between, and then the 75. I was dead at the end. Pleasantly dead, but dead. And I had hit the half-hour mark, which for now I have defined as a sufficiently long workout to claim victory. It’s still only 10 weeks since my back surgery, so I’m giving myself lots of breaks. (Or making lots of excuses. Both perspectives are valid.)

Now I’m on my way to D.C. for a family visit. I’m writing this on the train. I grew up in the D.C. suburbs and my sister still lives there. I haven’t figured out yet how I’m going to swim while I’m there. But I still have my lock, from the CVS on 23^rd and 1^st, so I’m ready for whatever fate throws at me.

Except that my left foot, which was cramping a bit yesterday while I was swimming, is now killing me whenever I put weight on it. It feels like I’ve got a hairline fracture. I can’t think of any reason why I would have a hairline fracture. It was my hand I smashed into the ladder at the $50-a-day pool, not my foot, and my hand feels fine. Current plan: ice it when I get to my sister’s house; if that doesn’t work, massage it; if it still hurts, ignore it and hope the pain goes away by itself.

Getting old stinks.