Where's the Wall??? An Adventure in Long Course Swimming

For my entire swimming career (if you can call a binder full of participation ribbons a career), I have swam short course yards - only 25 yards per length. The only time I did meters was when one of the pools we swam against during summer league was meters, and I would always look at the heat sheet in confusion because my times were much slower than I remembered. I also never did club swimming, which would have had me swimming long course meters (50 meter lengths) ages ago. Unfortunately, I didn't, so my first experience with swimming LCM was today, during my first trip to the pool after it switched over from SCY for the summer club season.

One of my biggest concerns with LCM was that there were only ten lanes at the pool instead of the normal twenty, and I was worried I would have to share a lane - something I haven't done since five years ago for high school swimming. There were only four lanes open for lap swimming, and normally when I'm at the pool there are more than four swimmers in the lap lanes, so I was nervous when I pulled into the parking lot of the aquatic center and saw it was packed. If you watch Bob's Burgers, I made the exact same groan that Tina Belcher makes whenever she gets nervous or frustrated (or really any emotion - Tina groans are the best).

Luckily, when I got inside, there was one empty lane, so I claimed it with my gear and water bottle right away. Then all I had to do was stretch and try to convince myself to jump into this very long, very intimidating pool. I had to walk the length of it to get a kickboard from the equipment box, and the whole time I was mentally groaning because it was so far without a wall.

After my first lap, I immediately decided that LCM was my mortal enemy. 50 meters may not sound like a lot, especially to people who run, but it honestly seems like it was going on forever. I wanted to keep lifting my head up all the way to look towards the wall because I felt like I should have reached it hours ago. I normally count my strokes every length, especially when I'm wearing fins, because I try and swim at a consistent pace, but this time I just kept losing track because it was such a high number. I've swam up to 800 yards straight before in SCY, but in LCM today I could only do a maximum of 200 meters at once - and even then, it was a struggle to make it to that final wall.

I've honestly just never appreciated flip turns before. Swimming a 200 SCY is so much fun for me - it's eight lengths which means I get to do seven flip turns. In LCM, it's only 3 flip turns, so it takes so much longer. I enjoy doing longer distances at a time because the flip turns make it go faster, and the lack of flip turns in long course swimming really upset me.  I'm going to have to keep at it, though, because the pool doesn't turn back to SCY until August and I can't just not swim for two months. But come August sixth, you can bet I'll be jumping for joy at being able to swim 25 yards again.