First Morning Practice Long Course

So today I swam on my own at Canada Games Pool. Let me describe to you my local pool. The pool is conveniently located only twenty minutes away by foot from my home if I cut through Queens Park, which makes for a pleasant walk in good weather. While most of the time the long course pool is split by bulkheads creating two short course 25 meter pools plus a wading pool the arrangement is adjusted to allow the swimming of 50 meter laps every weekday morning by moving the center bulkhead.

Clearly I’m not quickly bouncing back after last night’s workout. Still lethargic and swimming long course seems to make everything a little more difficult. I’m sharing the pool with other length swimmers in two lanes while the other six lanes are taken up by one of the Senior Hyack teams and our Masters Hyack Triathlon team (CGP). Strangely Canada Games Pool has the public double lane set up for traffic to go up one side and down the other side, with passing in the middle. This is different from everywhere else (including the adjoining Hyack lanes) where traffic goes up the sides and down the middle. I see a Japanese lady start off up the pool on the far side and a moment later almost collide with someone coming down the other way. Later on she’s in a talk with one of the lifeguards complaining and I don’t blame her. Everywhere else in the world has the same lane organization except for CGP. I’m not sure why they’ve set up their lanes this particular way – I do know it makes turns very awkward since you have to traverse a full lane to bring yourself over to the other side, something that takes two or three strokes to accomplish.