Let's Talk About Swimming - Sparkles and Shoes

Hello, hello and welcome back! While it is not quite Friday we are almost there and it has certainly been an action packed week. I had said at the start of the Olympics I was not going to talk about swimming but yyes, that was in vain. This is my blog, so instead of a throwback Thursday post of a walking tour of London my friends gave me when I visited in the Spring let’s talk about boyfriend. Oh, hi Ryan.

Yes, that is Ryan Lochte. Yes, that photo is from 10 years ago. Yes, I look a baby. In Summer 2005, Summer 2006, and Summer 2007 Ryan and I competed at the same swim meets both going all out in our signature backstroke events. Summer 2008? Yeah, he was in Beijing and I was off to swim in college instead of the Olympics. And it is still going. Fast forward many years to my post swimming just post knee surgery phase where Ryan and I reconnected in Summer 2013 at the premiere of his What Would Ryan Lochte Do? press day in NYC.

But this is not the first time I have written about Ryan, or as my mom calls him, boyfriend. I could paraphrase or I can take you back more than three years to the first time I wrote about RSL and to keep it authentic so let’s do that and I am not even going to fix the typo:

Ryan Lochte … He Was Mine First!

April 17, 2013

This past summer you probably swooned over America’s back-up golden boy, Ryan Lochte, as he and his amazing abs swam to victory in the London Olympics. After this summer’s races Ry is now the second most decorated American swimmer after Michael Phelps. And arguably, the most attractive!

As I have mentioned before I was a very competitive swimmer and since I can remember I loved how the whole world focused on my sport every time the summer Olympic Games rolled around. However, nine months after London the once-every-four-year sport that was my bread and butter for over a decade is going to be featured on the same channel that brought you Girls Next Door and the Kardashian clan.

Ryan, an 11 time Olympic medalist and holder of four world records, now has his own show on E! called “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” You can definitely tell that all of the major networks have their season premieres coming up and this is an attempt to fill the Sunday evening gap. The show apparently is going to follow Ryan’s life as he trains for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics – we shall see…

My reaction to this show is a bit strange, while some people wish it wasn’t on because it seems silly I wish it was not on because I do not want to share! My reaction needs a bit of explaining – as I’ve mentioned before, you all know I was a big swimmer (here and here) and even though I have had a couple of fast races I was never going to be an Olympic swimmer. However, growing up I traveled all over the country swimming in more pools than I care to remember and had the change to train, practice, and compete with Ryan while he was a student at the University of Florida. (He was good back then too, the NCAA Swimmer of the Year twice). I had a big schoolgirl crush on him and am now sad I have to share him.

And while all of you oogle over his body and laugh at the script,
just know, he was mine first! 🙂