I Am a Spoiled Swimmer (or, Adventures in Gym Swimming)

For all the years I have been swimming, I've never really thought much of my pool situations.  For eight summers I swam once or twice a day with my summer league team at a nearby neighborhood pool.  For four years of high school, I swam five afternoons a week, four months a year, in the Olympic-sized aquatics center downtown.   From August through last week, I swam at that same aquatics center up to three times a week, and those were glorious swims.  I never had to share a lane, never lacked equipment, never had any problems. And apparently I shouldn't have been taking that for granted.

I recently got a job in a different city and moved into my new apartment last week.  My apartment had a deal where I could get a free month trial at the gym right down the road, and they have a pool so I figured I would try it out until I can find another pool that is convenient to home and work.  I don't know if it was just today, but there's a good chance I may be having to find another pool sooner than I expected.

When I got there and saw that it was only three lanes, I was a little apprehensive, but I blew it off.  Not every pool is going to have sixteen lanes like I'm used to, I could deal with that.  I thought I was going to have to share a lane, but in the time it took me to stretch one of the lanes cleared out, so I was good on that one.  However, my stretching time also made me realize two other things- first, the pool was in the same enclosed area as the spa so it was grossly steamy and hot, and second, that there was no box of equipment.  I have my own goggles, cap and fins, but I never bothered to buy a pull buoy or kickboard because my aquatics center always had plenty of them in their equipment box.

I was annoyed, but I could deal with this.  I looked through the workouts I had and picked one that didn't have lots of kick and pull sets and figured I would either remove the ones it did have or change them up.  With that settled, I jumped into the empty center lane and things went south from there.  I immediately realized two things-  the pool was only three feet deep all the way across and it was salt water.  I could deal with the depth, but the salt water is something I've never really had a chance to get used to.  I've always swam in chlorinated pools with the exception of a few summer league away meets.  It was really unpleasant at first and I found myself drinking twice as often from my water bottle (which overall probably isn't a bad thing) to get the taste out of my mouth. Maybe it's something I'll get used to over time, or maybe all the pools here are salt water and I'll be forced to learn to deal with it.  Regardless, it didn't make my experience any better.

While swimming my warm-up, I realized the biggest difference between an aquatics center and a pool at a gym- aquatics centers are for swimmers, and gym pools are for people who want to swim.  I don't want to step on any toes or insult anyone, and I know I'm not the world's greatest swimmer either.  Normally I look like an old lady stuck swimming in a pool of Michael Phelpses.  But today, I was the Michael Phelps in a pool of old ladies.  I really don't want to downplay anyone's swimming efforts, because it's a great way to exercise, but these people's strokes were all over the place.  They were kicking wildly and out of rhythm and splashing all over the place.  The small width probably made this more prevalent, but I felt more like I was in a wave pool than a swimming pool.  I normally pride myself on having a really even stroke count, especially when I'm swimming 200 or more yards at a time, but today I had a different stroke count every single length.  It was so annoying to me that I ended up cutting out almost half of my workout and leaving after less than an hour.

It could have just been the time of day, or it could have been those particular people.  I could end up getting used to all of these different factors over the next month, or I could end up going out of my way just so I can have all the luxuries I'm used to at an aquatics center.  Whatever the case, I definitely learned something about myself today- I am a spoiled swimmer.