the two kinds: a scientific guide

There are two kinds of Pool Time. I engaged in both this weekend, because I'm just a diverse person like that.  Let's take a look at the features of each, shall we?

Pool Time A: The Fun Kind-

Features of the Fun Kind of Pool Time include a lot of time looking at this view,

with intermittent breaks to dive in and float around. Other key elements of the Fun Kind are friends and/or family likewise partaking in the Fun, regular reapplication of delicious-smelling sun protection, napping, and maybe even a friendly game of Dump Your Spouse Off His Float and/or See How Long We Can Keep This Beach Ball In The Air, if you're feeling ambitious. Fun Kind typically lasts between one and 10 hours. We happened to engage in it for about six hours on Saturday, which was an excellent decision.

The Fun Kind of Pool Time leaves you feeling generally like this the entire day:

I should probably be given some kind of Lifetime Achievement award when it comes to the Fun Kind of Pool Time...I've basically given my life to researching and maximizing the fun-ness of pool times, and I owe most of my expertise to my mother, who took very seriously her job of instilling the proper love of sun, water, reading, and frosty beverages into her offspring. I am perfectly content to spend all ten months of the Georgia summers perfecting my art even further...except for this teeny tiny matter of training for a triathlon that has sneaked into my life.

It seems that if I am going to be able to do the swimming portion of the tri, I'm going to need to...ya know...swim occasionally. One would think I could just incorporate swimming into my Fun Kind of Pool Time. One would be wrong. I mean, I tried. It comes down to a little matter of wardrobe malfunctions. There's a reason you don't see Olympic swimmers wearing cute bikinis from Old Navy. Yes, that is most likely because they are too busy swimming that they don't have time to do something as pedestrian as go shopping for swimwear. But it is also because cute bikinis are fundamentally lazy and prefer to only be around for the Fun Kind of Pool Time. The minute you try to make those babies work, they're like 'peace, I'm outta here.' And so there you are, swimming like a fish towards the deep end...and there your bottoms are, back at the starting line, drifting towards the pool floor and thinking about their next beer. Lazy bastards. So clearly I cannot do any swimming on a FUN pool day if I hope to keep my private parts private...which I do. Actual swimming calls for much more boring and muffin-enhancing swimwear, which I would refuse to wear for any more time than absolutely necessary.

Enter Pool Time B: The Workout Kind-

Features of the Workout Kind of Pool Time include ugly swimwear, albuterol inhalers, goggles, counting, a timer and/or workout app, pain, agony, misery, and a general fear of dying. A person engaging in the Workout Kind of Pool Time is too busy...working out...to take pictures during the process, but after they are finished and they peel themselves off the shallow-end stairs and regain normal breathing skills, they look something like this:

 The Workout Kind of Pool Time typically lasts between one second and 20 hours (if you're Michael Phelps). I managed to stick with it for 12 minutes on Sunday, which is how long it took me to do my prescribed 40 laps. The Workout Kind of Pool Time is not really an area where I strive to overachieve or go the extra mile (or lap)...I was in enough pain after 40 that I was pretty much dead and required a two hour nap immediately afterwards to become a human again. That's pretty pathetic, since in a few months I'm going to have to follow up my swim with...ya know, a fourteen mile bike ride followed by running a 5k. Yikes.

So even though the Workout Kind of Pool Time is clearly farrrrr less enjoyable than basically anything I've ever done except running the Fun Kind, I'm going to have to suck it up and designate a lot more of my future Pool Times to this. 

Want to know what Workout Kind and Fun Kind have in common? They both leave you with amazing and dazzling hairstyles in their wake:

Please. Try to contain your jealousy. Post-pool bangs are just about the sexiest things you ever have seen, I know.

So that was basically my weekend. Lots of pool time. And thankfully, the vast majority of it was the Fun Kind. Hallelujah.