Counting to 10

How difficult can it be to count to 10?  Not that difficult, right?  1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10.  No problem. Afterall it's one of the first things parents and teachers drill into us as kids.  It's the number of fingers and toes we have (usually); it's the number of commandments to live by (if you're that way inclined); 10 is the base number in all things metric; and so it goes on.
 
Yesterday, however, 10 was way too difficult. 

It was difficult because it was "time trial" day in the pool.  And that meant counting laps.  With a stopwatch.  And doing the right number of laps. A simple task of 1000m, timed.  Hmmm.

Sounds straightforward, but keeping track of your laps is a common problem.  Just google "counting swim laps" and you'll get 656,000 links to webpages, blogs, forums and wiki sites discussing tricks and hints, and extolling the virtues of various high tech gadgets that will do the job for you with varying degrees of efficiency. Some people have a coach or friend stand poolside and count for them. Others use various counting methods, such as counting odd and even laps, or reciting letters of the alphabet.  Other suggestions include having a pile of coins and a cup poolside and putting a coin in the cup at the end of each lap, or having a block of wood numbered like a dice and turning it to the appropriate number at the end of each lap, or even treating the lane rope like an abacus and moving the floats along the rope.

But, come on, how hard can it be?  We're just counting to 10 afterall.  But there's more to it.  You see it's not like swimming from point A to point B as in an open water swim.  You have to deal with the monotony of the same pool lane, length after length after length.  And there's also so much to think about.  On the one hand you want your mind to zone out so that the time passes by a little less slowly but, on the other hand, you are also continually thinking about technique, breathing, foreign objects floating around you in the pool and, of course, the number of laps you've done or still have to do.

So, 1000m in a 25m pool means completing 40 lengths or 20 laps.  Rather than count to 20 I broke it down further and made it 10 lots of 100m and called each lap "a" or "b".  I kept track, then, by counting to myself 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, through to 10a and 10b.

The first couple of laps were fine - 1a, 1a, head down, 1a, strong, glide, 1a, 1a, turn, 1a, 1a, rotate hips, 1a, breathe, glide 1a, 1a, turn, 1b, 1b, 1b, and so it went.  Laps 3 and 4 were a bit tough (body getting used to the oxygen deprivation etc), but by the time I got to laps 5 and 6 I was feeling better, comfortable breathing and of course by then I was in the final half of the swim - the final stretch, and that's when it started to turn to custard. And it went something like this:

7a, 7a, 7a, breathe, what's that floating in the water?, 7a, turn, oh good, still have the lane to myself, 7a, 7a, only 250m to go, turn,  almost there, glide, breathe, 8 will be next, pull, rotate, turn, yuck, what's wrapped around my finger, feels like a hair, 8.... umm oh no, what number am I on, 8a or 8b?  aaargh!

The next length was spent calmy trying to mentally backtrack, but to no avail.  The counting part of my brain had well and truly left the building.  I got to lap 10, then, with no idea if I was about to complete 950m or 1000m.  I started doing quick calculations estimating what my time should be, based on previous 100m splits, and when I touched the end of the pool, glanced at my watch.  25minutes it showed.  mmm, might be a bit quick...so I turned around and did another lap, finally stopping the watch at 26 minutes 27 seconds.

I still have no idea if I did 1000m or 1050m but, if I did the longer distance I'll at least show a respectable improvement to my time in the next trime trial - that's assuming I manage to count to 10!