Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Other Woman

I used to joke with JP that I'll never be jealous of another woman, I know full well how devoted he is to me, but my goodness am I sometimes jealous of that chlorinated hole in the ground he can't go three days without. Now, eight years into our chlorine-filled love triangle, I've realized that I don't resent the time JP gives to swimming or even the sport's importance to him, I resent the fact that he takes the time to do something I don't. All the excuses I list for not finding time to work out apply to him as well - when he was doing investment banking and I was the student, they applied to him 10x more than me and yet he still swam at least 4 times a week. Most of thosee days he'd get up for Landon's early morning feeding around 5 a.m., put him back to bed and then drive straight to the pool (a trip that added 45 mins to his already hour long commute). He's never let his self-imposed practice schedule get in the way of his roles as husband and father and in realizing that I've been able to stop the occasional comments or eye rolls.

I reap a few benefits from JP's swimming habit. One, it keeps him healthy and helps battle his family's very bad history of heart disease. Two, everyone needs a passion and there are worse ones out there. Three, as a former swimmer I usually enjoy the sport's continued presence in my life. Four, it keeps him looking like this:



I'm not going to lie, I enjoy #4 quite a lot.

This weekend JP decided to register for a big meet at UT's Swim Center. The TSC is a famed natatorium in Texas. As a little summer leaguer I dreamed of one day swimming there and finally did for four high school States and a few other big meets (and then again as part of the team). Even after years as JP's cheerleader and not a swimmer myself I still feel my pulse quicken when I first walk through the doors. Some great swimming has taken place in that pool.



I wasn't sure how well JP would do at this meet. It's been a long time since he's trained properly or competed, but he insisted that he's stronger now than he was in college even if he doesn't have the same level of endurance. And I should never have doubted- with Landon and I cheering him on, he finaled in both his events and got second in the one he swam again tonight (he had to scratch the other, as an "old man" he didn't think he could do both twice in one day). Here he is with his game face on:



It was fun to be back in the stands, though it was the first time I'd ever sat down and not known any of the other spectators. It was even more fun to hold Landon in my lap and say, "Look, there's Dada!" when JP was called to the blocks. I thought back on all the meets I've watched him swim, starting from my freshman year of college, and I'm not sure I ever thought I'd be taking our nearly 2-year old son to watch him race in the same pool. We were both very proud. Or at least I was very proud. Landon probably was too, but he was mostly busy racing up and down the ramps, waving to all the swimmers on deck, dancing to the music for the championship heats, and humbly accepting the crowd's applause. I think he enjoyed his time at the TSC almost as much as his dad.

15 comments:

  1. Woah! He certainly looks intimidating with his game face on! How neat that he still competes. Puts my 20 mins with Gillian Michaels to shame for sure.

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  2. Amen for nr. 4!

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  3. wow, your husband is hot! I see landon in him for sure too! I know how you feel about feeling jealous in the sense that you don't give time to the activity. I feel the same way about running. My husband works out about three timesa week, I used to be the RUNNER. The intense 8 mile a day runner. and now I don't run at all, there is just no time. I'm not willing to sacrfice my jacob time. In the end, we will be glad we spent it with our babies I'm sure!

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  4. Not only can I not believe he swam in a meet, but I really can't believe he trains 4 times a week. You couldn't pay me to get in the water.

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  5. Love the swimsuits - although I'm somewhat astonished that he is not wearing orange! I guess they don't make orange shark-skin suits yet!

    Is he technically a Masters Swimmer? That's over 25 here in NZ.

    Did you get to swim in the sharkskin all in one suits (or the knee length kind)? If so, what are they like to wear? Are they hugely expensive?

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  6. My husband gets up at 5:00 and runs every other day, including weekends. He does this while I proceed to look like a beluga while pregnant with our second child. He eats ravenously from all of his running, and is ripped. I? Eat ravenously and look like a beluga. It's depressing.

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  7. This is completely off topic but I would really appreciate an answer. I remember a few months/year ago, you commented on New Duck's blog about what you did to feel better when your milk came in and you wanted it to go away because you weren't planning on nursing. What was it? Please share; I'm weaning and it hurts!

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  8. To Anon: send me an email at lagliv@gmail.com

    To RJ: JP is officially an Unattached USS swimmer. He's registered with USA Swimming so that he can enter in meets but he doesn't swim with a recognized team. He generally trains alone because of his schedule but he has a habit of picking up other swimmers around him and becoming their coach and training partner. He currently has three other former swimmers training with him.

    As for the suits, he borrowed a LZR from an Olympic swimming friend of ours but found it hard to move his shoulders with it on (they are Very tight) so he instead wore his FastSkin from college. LZRs are several hundred dollars and FastSkins aren't cheap either (usually between $100-200) but he got them free as a UT athlete. I never swam in either one- as a breaststroker I didn't like the constriction of movement in my legs and arms, but JP said the LZRs really do feel different and agrees with the general consensus that they are an unfair advantage against past swimmers who didn't have them. There's talk of banning them in future competitions (which raises a whole host of other issues about all the records that were broken in the past year of wearing them).

    And no, they don't come in orange -- Nike did make us special UT running shoes once with burnt orange in them, but we generally adopt black as our competition color :)

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  9. Yeah, um, I think I would enjoy reaping the benefits of #4, as well. Hmm, that sounded really creepy. I don't mean it as creepily as it sounds. Just trying to say you're a lucky lady. :)

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  10. To the last Anon: that made me laugh out loud in my office. JP will appreciate that last line :)

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  11. wow. hot. like h-o-t hot.

    I feel inappropriate. Whatever, I'm getting over it. You're the one that posted the pics.

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  12. dude. jp is the hottness. srsly.
    i think my fawning over him trumps everyone else, on account of my persuasion.

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  13. OH DEAR GOD.

    I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO I MEAN, I WANT TO SAY HOLY SHIT YOUR HUSBAND IS FUCKING HOT....BUT I DON'T WANT TO SOUND INAPPROPRIATE...AND I DON'T WANT TO JUST SAY, OH YEAH HE LOOKS OKAY AND COME OFF TOO NON CHALANT BUT OMG YOUR HUSBAND IS FUCKING HAWWWWWWT!

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  14. I'm never afraid to be inappropriate: Your husband's frickin' hawt. Not that my husband isn't hawt too, of course, but he's got more of a keg than a six pack. :D

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  15. angie in hawaii6/16/09, 11:52 AM

    I have to laugh at all the fawning over JP--only because I sure had all of those thoughts myself :) Aside from the great body, though, he has a wonderful smile, and you can definitely see in it his kind heart!

    As a non-swimmer, I was interested in your comments about the suits. Does the LZR one help a swimmer go faster?

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