3/30/12
Today I went into the CAC in order to take the pre course requirements to register for my lifeguard class. It was a Friday afternoon so I was pretty much just ready to get it over with and I'll admit at that point I was a little bit nervous.
So I'm walking into the aquatic center thinking about how long its been since I've even gone to the pool (swim team ended in January) and how the water is probably going to be too cold like it always is at first and how I just want to get this done. I met with the lifeguard that was going to "evaluate me" and make sure I didn't drown or anything. He was a nice enough guy and told me I could start whenever I was ready.
The first test was swimming 300 yards. This isn't hard at all and I'm used to swimming a 500 yd. for warm-up , but I'd been out of the water for two months and I was very out of shape as far as swimming goes. And on top of all that I swam it pretty fast because I wanted to be done with it. In order words, I was a little out of breath by the end of the twelfth lap and a little dizzy.
The next test was treading water for two minutes with your arms under your armpits. This was the part of the test that I was most anxious about because had never really tried to tread water without my arms. I guess I figured I could do anything for two minutes if I tried hard enough and I did manage to do it, but I'm not gonna lie, it was hard for me. It worked out okay though because the lifeguard watching me was busy talking to his other lifeguard friends so when my arms instinctively tried to jump out of my armpits to flail helplessly every so often, he didn't care or notice.
The final test was actually pretty easy. I just had to swim out 20 yards and retrieve a 10 lb brick from the deep end of the dive well. It went fine and the only awkward part was having to go down feet first to get the brick so that I had to wave my arms around like wings or something to get down.
After all was said and done the lifeguard told me I was the first person he's ever passed (which made me feel good) and took like 20 minutes to register me for the class (he said the computer must not have liked me, haha).
So I am now cleared to take lifeguard training! Whooo!
