Long, Hot Swim (with a POOL CURRENT!)

This past week, I swam on a day that I usually don't, and I was surprised to see a sign saying that the "normal" pool (Cooke 15) was closed, but the shallow pool in Cooke 10 was open:

Honestly, I thought the life guard flipped the wrong sign...


... but sure enough, Cooke 15 was closed! (The sign notes that
it's just closed for a few hours THAT DAY for some maintenance.)

I walked into Cooke 10 about 15 minutes later than normal, and I was the ONLY one there. Weird. The lifeguard sort of apologized for having us in the shallow pool. I didn't care. I hopped in AND NOTICED HOW HOT THE WATER WAS!! I don't care that it's shallow, but I DO care that it's a bathtub! This swim was going to be rough!

I had the time to do a long swim, and I hoped I wasn't going to overheat. I figured a pyramid swim was out because that swim has some longer intervals near the middle, and I'd BAKE during those. I decided to do my normal "broken 400s and 200s" workout that just starts with one 400, then has some 200s, 100s, and 50s. It was the best balance of "long workout" and "not long sets" that I could think off.

Times were a bit slow, but I got through it. That workout (along with a warm-up, cool-down, and some kick drills) is usually around 2500, but I did some extra kick drills and some pull drills as well. I ended up with 3100 yards, and my first swim over an hour in YEARS! I did 3100 yards in just under 65 mins! I knew I hadn't swam that long since pre-Covid, but as I started looking back in my training long, I got back to 2018 and still never found a swim over an hour. (I found 3 swims of 1+ hours in Aug of 2010 when I knew I was swimming a lot: 2 that were 3100 yards, and one that was 3280 [in 61, 69, and 65 minutes respectively]. I found a 3600 yard swim in 70 mins in Sept of 2010, and a 3500 yard swim in 61 mins in Feb of 2011. I bet most of these were with swim buddy Julia at the Y, with some of the summer ones being open water swims with her and the gang.)

I had the pool to myself for most of the workout, and then a guy in the lane next to me for a while. As I was cooling down, a few more people came in (I bet it was quiet because people saw the signs and no one wanted to come swim in that hot tub). Here's the scene just after I climbed the ladder and hopped out:

Notice 3 of the lanes are short because of the handicapped ramp.


Walking back to my car in the fresh snow.

OK, here's a wild thing that I SWEAR is true, but I hardly believe it myself. Near the end of my main set of swimming, I was making it a point to hit the 2nd and 4th lengths of each interval a bit harder (so "on the way back" in the pool each time). I felt slow in those. Then when I was doing my kick drills, I felt like I was HARDLY moving coming back down the pool. BUT ONLY IN THAT ONE DIRECTION. Sure enough, because I do 4x75 kick drills, I have to go 1 direction ONCE, and the other direction TWICE on each interval, and the times I had to do "the slow way" twice were really slow! My splits were:

1:52 (2 fast lengths)
2:04 (2 slow lengths)
1:49 (2 fast lengths)
2:06 (2 slow lengths)

I'm almost never over 2:00, and I'm NEVER that sporadic in my splits!

IT WASN'T IN MY HEAD! There was a CURRENT in that pool!

I took a look at the length splits my Garmin gave me from early on in the workout (before I was able to get tired). Here's my opening 400 (from 50 yards to 200 yards), and notice the 1st, 3rd, and 5th lengths are FAST (around 1:20/100 pace), and the 2nd, 4th, and 6th lengths are SLOW (around 1:48/100 pace):

The majority of my lengths show my pace FAST then SLOW because of this. Wild!

I've never felt this before!

Hopefully I don't have to swim in Cooke 10 again for a while!...