You're probably gonna want to check this out...

My friend has started his own Facebook page, and you should probably head over there and LIKE it :) But I can't just tell you that without facts, right? (Well, I can be all bossy and whatnot)

His page, Fattest Salmon, is described as, "A buddy of mine convinced me to get back into the pool, back into shape and into Seattle's Fat Salmon swim this July. So I am doing that and trying to write about it the best I can."

But it's a little more than that.  I would like to give you the opportunity to meet him, so I've presented him with a couple questions. Enjoy, and then go like his FaceBook page. You will not be sorry!!

Describe yourself and your relationship with swimming in a sentence (or two).

Do you remember when you first joined Facebook and a friend request came in from somebody that you knew in high school that you had lost touch with but, when you saw their picture, you thought "Oh, hey! Yeah! I remember that dude!" and you immediately accepted his friend request and wrote on his wall?  It's that type of relationship.

Best piece of advice you've ever received.

I've shared this before but it really is the best advice I have ever received.  It was after my second swim of my first State swim meet as a freshman in high school.  I had only been in the water full-time for about six months so nobody was more surprised than me that I had finished so well (first, actually, in both the 200 and 100 freestyles).  After cooling down and getting dressed my coach told me this: "Potential is French for ain't done shit yet."  Fifteen year olds are too stupid to understand what this means but I think I am starting to understand it now that I am 36.

What is your biggest struggle in returning to the pool after some time off?

You mean other than being fat, old and just generally out-of-shape?  Other than those, I can give you two Biggest Struggles.  Physically, it's flexibility.  My body has tightened up since I stopped swimming and not in the good way.  The solution to this problem is obvious--a solid stretching routine--but I have obviously not taken my own advice on this.  My Biggest Struggle mentally is not comparing myself to myself.  As in "I used to be able to..." or "This used to be..."  Swimming was the easiest thing I did when I was seventeen.  Twenty years later, not so much.

What do you hope to learn from this journey?

You know how when you were a kid and you would lose something and your mom would tell you to "retrace your footsteps" until you found it?  My journey is something like that. But Fattest Salmon is not just about the swimming--it's about writing, too.  Swimming and writing used to be the things that I did best and loved most..  Unfortunately, I let myself lose touch with both.  And while I'm not stupid enough to think that I can recapture what I had in either of those things--fast freestyle and bad poetry are a young man's game--I do think that I can find new measures of happiness and success.

Who do you think should follow your page?

In a post last month, I described myself as "a regretfully out of shape ex-athlete who already knows how to swim and is looking to get back into just good enough shape to not embarrass himself sometime in the next 6-8 months; also a bit of a ginger."  'Swim' is the least important of all those words because it is just a noun that could be run or walk or write or macrame or whatever it is you are trying to get back in to.  When I do write about swimming it is in a very general way (the technicals and techniques of swimming bore even swimmers) and I try to bring in as much humor and pop-culture as possible.  So if you are a part-time swimmer or somebody trying to get back into a non-embarrassing shape or are a bit of a ginger then maybe Fattest Salmon is for you!