Different Pools, Different Swim Times
Jack Hughes
Posts: 1,262
in General Chat
OK. It could be me just being crap, and it probably is.. but...
How standard are pools?
Up in Bonny Scotland all week. And did venture out into Airdrie (dismal suburb of great Glasgow), and visited the "John Smith" swimming pool.
Quite a nice pool - really really empty of an evening. Which was great as there were no lanes - but as you had about 8ft of space either side, none were needed.
Before my recent Op and suspension of activities, I could regularly do about 28 secs (just as a one of length - stringing 20 of these together is some way off yet!). But in this pool, I found I was taking about 34 secs. And the fastest that I managed to go was 29 secs.
Back to the local pool this a.m. (Home at Last!) And I was back to 28/29 secs - with the fastest at a storming 24 secs.
This leads me to suspect that there must be some variation in the size of the pools - both are supposed to be 25 metres. And as far as I know a Scottish Metre is the same as the Yorkshire one.
On reflection, the John Smith is nice and new and will have been built in Metres. But Bingley pool is old and victorian and probably built in yards.
I've probably answered my own question while typing this. Ho hum.....
But it means my swimming has even further to go than I thought (my training objective for swimming is to be able to do 20 lengths at an average of 30 seconds by September).
How standard are pools?
Up in Bonny Scotland all week. And did venture out into Airdrie (dismal suburb of great Glasgow), and visited the "John Smith" swimming pool.
Quite a nice pool - really really empty of an evening. Which was great as there were no lanes - but as you had about 8ft of space either side, none were needed.
Before my recent Op and suspension of activities, I could regularly do about 28 secs (just as a one of length - stringing 20 of these together is some way off yet!). But in this pool, I found I was taking about 34 secs. And the fastest that I managed to go was 29 secs.
Back to the local pool this a.m. (Home at Last!) And I was back to 28/29 secs - with the fastest at a storming 24 secs.
This leads me to suspect that there must be some variation in the size of the pools - both are supposed to be 25 metres. And as far as I know a Scottish Metre is the same as the Yorkshire one.
On reflection, the John Smith is nice and new and will have been built in Metres. But Bingley pool is old and victorian and probably built in yards.
I've probably answered my own question while typing this. Ho hum.....
But it means my swimming has even further to go than I thought (my training objective for swimming is to be able to do 20 lengths at an average of 30 seconds by September).
0
Comments
Seriously - you probably did answer your own question correctly though
*too much detail alert -
pools are built to a mm tolerance - i've heard of pools where the setting out of the concrete was set as 25m, with the tiling this reduced the pool length to 24.940m (6cm difference). that sort of thing would be pretty much unnoticable to a casual swimmer although i think it did mean the pool wouldn't meet short course racing standard.
i've designed a couple of pools, the amount of worry this sort of stuff causes is extraordinary!
that seams loads, average tile is around 9-12mm plus 10mm average for adhesive and uneven surface. although new concrete surface should be fairly true.
I'd say 40mm (4cm) would be closer to the mark.
that 20mm could be the difference between 1st and 2nd!
you are absolutely right, in racing 20mm can be the difference between first and second, i doubt for most of use we would even notice it in our stroke count.
jesster, did you spot the weakling arms in the watter bottle thread? told you there were no guns in this house!
I also assumed the tiles would be thicker than the average domestic tile due to the commercial nature of a public swimming pool.
And boys, can we please stop talking about tiles. You raving boffins, you!! lol
in best nasal voice -
of course the normal swim pool tile is only 6mm but is a high performance glazed blah drone wonk zzzz
On this subject, does water temperature have an effect on swim times?
colder water being more dense and therefore harder to glide through?
With my 2 local pools one is much cooler than the other and older (so pre-metric and prob slightly shorter) but it takes me a good 2 extra strokes to complete the length. I've put this down to water temp but never considered other reasons!