Blog

No fun!

The pool at my gym is closed until the end of August. WTF? And to add insult to injury, it’s closed for pool deck renovations. My impression is that they’re not making any functional changes. On the bright side, it would have been much worse if it had been closed in June or July. I can swim at the other locations around the city, but the only ones with pools are pretty inconvenient.

This leaves me with finding another local pool to swim in for the next few weeks. There’s a YMCA nearby with a pool, but I’ve swam there before and don’t really like it. Also, I’m not sure I can sign up for just August, which is going to a problem generally with other private pools.

So, I decided to try one of the city’s outdoor pools. I did some research, and saw that the outdoor public pools have FREE lap swimming every weekday from 7-8:30AM and 7-8:30PM. Some of the pools are even Olympic size (or close to it). And then I read my blogger friend Love of Shoes‘s recent post about her successful discovery of NYC’s public pools. She found herself a good public pool and even quit her gym membership. So I was really encouraged. And, remember, it’s FREE.

This morning, I got up and walked nearly 1.5 miles to the pool closest to home (1.5 miles directly in the opposite direction from my office!). I knew going in that this pool wasn’t Olympic sized and couldn’t find any positive reviews of it on-line from any lap swimmers. I knew I was taking a risk, but there it was the most convenient pool to my house or office.) I got there, changed into my suit and got ready for a nice, outdoor swim under a sunny morning. And then I walked onto the pool deck.

The pool looked OK: 25-or-so yards, split into three extra-wide lanes. The lanes were even marked “slow” “medium” and “fast”. Each lane had between five and six swimmers doing circles. Problem was, they should have been marked “Are you even moving?”, “I guess this is called ‘swimming'” and “slow”. I considered just walking away, but got into the “fast” lane, waited for a small break in the circle and started swimming. Nope. No can do. I am not Speedy Gonzalez in the water and I can swim at a relaxed pace, but even going super slowly, I was going to spend way too much time passing, trying to pass or stopping to let the people in front of me get further ahead. I swam one lap and I was out.

Great morning. Glad I trudged up there. Sweet.

But I’m not giving up on the City’s pools – I guess I’ll just have to get on the subway and go to one of the others. And if that doesn’t work, maybe the pools at the other locations of my gym won’t seem so inconvenient.

Oh, and I haven’t run since the Ironman. (Not running really does wonders for my mood.) My “knee” is still bothering me. I say “knee” even though I know it’s my IT band. I got relief from my massage the other night and when I self-massage or roll it out, it feels better. So, I’m doing all that and some extra strength training and keeping my fingers crossed that I can start running again soon.

Enough bitching for one day? I think so.

Strength – July 28

Indoor Bike – July 29
Time: 30 minutes
Average heart rate: 122

Strength – July 30