When I went swimming last week, the pool was full. I think I saw some high school kids as well as college kids and the usual older crowd. Summer is over, so I should expect more of the same next week. Also? I got there a good 15-30 minutes earlier than usual. Note to self: don’t do that.

Anyway, all the lanes had two people in them, so I did something I haven’t done before. I joined the people swimming in the diving well, horizontally across the pool. This seemed a much shorter distance to me, and that combined with a lack of lane lines had me swimming much more freestyle than backstroke. I figured this distance was half of a regular length, and I counted lengths rather than yards, and I was doing lots of calculations in my head to figure out total yardage.

I ended up swimming 48 lengths total, which I calculated to be 600 yards. I stopped because my shoulders were feeling it, and I didn’t want to figure out any more yardage.

When I got home, I googled the width of an Olympic pool, which I think is the size of the pool. It said the width was 25 m, or a regular short-course length. Hmm, that would mean I swam 1200, without even thinking about it.

Maybe I should swim sideways more often…

cross posted at www.imswimming.net