Friday Evening Swim — Dunked in Public

September 1, 2017

The weather in Los Angeles has been extremely hot and humid this week. The change was pretty fast and came after a period of extremely mild summer weather – so much so that I was wearing sweaters to work and had moments where I actually felt cozy. Cozy is not a word or concept I want to think about this week…and it looks like I won’t want to consider it next week, either. I’m grateful for the opportunity to swim as my workout as it means I don’t have to experience a stinky sweaty salty run.

As such, I was looking forward to Friday night’s swim very much. It was going to be the perfect way to transition a busy week into a three day weekend. I arrived and discovered that one of the kids who swims during the hour before our workout had just puked in the pool.

It turns out that when this happens, the substance is scooped out (UGH) and chemicals are added to help sanitize the water. The pool is given a certain amount of time with no one in it for this to happen – it’s a process called super chlorination from what I understand after a quick google. The puke happened about 10 minutes prior to our 6:00 pm start time, and the Culver City pool waits 30 minutes after the water is treated until people are allowed back in.

I waited it out because I was so looking forward to the swim. The water looked and felt clean, though I did notice the extra chlorine, for sure. I showered extra long and still felt a bit itchy after so had to rinse my arms and legs. I stayed a little longer after the 40 minutes were up to swim while the next group did their warm-up, so I ended up getting a solid 50 minute swim, which is not so bad in the end.

One other thing – with the heat, the pool’s temperature was way up. It was kind of like swimming in a tepid bath. With the knowledge of how the Rose Bowl cools their pool during hot weather, I might see if Culver can do the same.

The Workout:

200 warm-up
9x50 free, fast-fast-normal
150 kick
2 rounds: 100, 100, 50 free
2x100 all out
50 all out
25 easy
25 all out
300 warm-down