"You should ask John (the lifeguard) to show you how to breathe out underwater," I mentioned to the young man just coming out of the pool. The young guy with a tattoo that ran down his shoulder was a strong swimmer but swam with his head out of the water. That's not the easiest thing to do with a freestyle swimming stroke, something I knew because I used to swim the same way.
"Oh, I surf," he answered, and obviously you can't see the bottom of the ocean the way you can see the bottom of the pool and you need to see where you are going. Naturally I felt about 100 years old after his answer, and I am closing in on that age, and about two inches tall, and I am closing in on that as well. Jesse however was very cool about the whole thing and told me that he had lived for five years in Hawaii and had loved surfing there. My wife and I spent our 30th anniversary in Hawaii and of course had watched the surfers and I was 'big-time' jealous of them. In athletics, I have never heard of anything that is actually more fun and I could see why Jesse couldn't wait to return, something he noted he had been along time saving for.
You never know who you are going to meet at the YMCA or what their story might be. I knew that we had tri-athletes here, including two Ironman finishers, but I hadn't expected a surfer this far inland.
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