July 27

Scott's Exercise In Fiji

This is the Olympic 50 meter pool in Suva. What you can't see is the 25 meter pool in back of the camera and the grandstand. Early each morning swim teams practice before school.  The pool is not chlorinated but has some kind of a saline solution that does not burn the eyes or smell.

It now is the middle of July which is the middle of the winter. The pool is not very crowded because it is so cold that the recreational swimmers do not come during the cold months. The temperature gets down to a freezing 70 degrees in the early morning.  The early 5 a.m. morning pool staff are always cold and come to work wearing hoody sweat shirts, scarfs, beanies, and long warm pants.  They think I am very brave to swim in such cold weather. 

My routine is to get up when I wake up between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., read my scriptures, say my prayers, change into my swimsuit, go to the pool, and swim 1,600 meters which is about a mile. After the swim I use the metal bars, shown above, to do 50 pull ups and 50 lat pulls.  The swim and workout takes about 45 to 50 minutes.  Needless to say I am slowest in the pool.  I then shower there and go home.  From our house it takes me about 8 minutes in the van to get there and up to 20 minutes to get home if I am too late and hit Suva rush hour traffic.

On the off days, I do yoga to a video tape.  This takes about 30 minutes and really helps my back and bulged disc and my arthritic hip.  When I first got here I ran in the morning, but found that it hurt my back and hip so I went to a workout that had less impact, swim 3 days and yoga 3 days each week.

This is another picture of the big pool.  The year pass cost me $150 Fiji dollars.  This is about $90 US.  The pass allows me to swim every day if I want for the entire year. What a deal!  

Each morning when I go to the pool and start swimming in the dark, there is one bank, or set, of lights on for about half my swim.  Then as it gets light the pool lights are switched off and I get to watch the sunrise behind the palm trees for the last half of my swim.  It is stunningly beautiful when it is not raining as the sun rises reflecting golden and orange colors across the whole sky. I feel such gratitude for the privilege for serving a mission in such a beautiful land with such fabulous people.

This is Sharon Pickering Smith a swim coach.  She starts the kids swimming at 5 a.m.  I got talking to her about her competitive experience and swim background.  I found out that she was a two-time Olympian and a Fiji swim record holder for a number of years.  This week she is taking three Fiji swimmers to Barcelona to compete.  I was awed at her experience.

In the morning when I come to the pool I always talk to the two ladies, Sako and Teather. Teather gets up at 3:00 a.m.  Fixes her kids lunches for school and then walks to work at 4:00 a.m. to make it there by 5 a.m.  Sako is a single lady who is about 40 years old and one of the few Fijian woman who is thin.  She is the long jump record holder for Fiji and still competes in net ball and occasionally track meets.  I gave both these woman Books of Mormon and Joseph Smith pamphlets.  I have to laugh because when I visit with them they call me pastor.  

The missionary APS  wanted to go golfing; so we went.