Damn Hot Water

I'll admit, I've been MIA, but there' s a good reason for that, I'm busy! I'm currently in week two of not staying in any one location for more than two nights at a time, which I have to admit, makes scheduling workouts not the easiest thing.

Anyway, back to the topic du jour. On Sunday I decide to track down a pool whilst in Michigan so I can get in a few laps and up my number of times in the pool per week (currently averaging just one). I find a local health club that only charges $8 and has an olympic pool, perfect. I walk in the front door of the place an immediately smell chlorine in the air, not good I think. I walk out of the locker room into a dingy, half lit pool area, with walls painted white and the steel roof supports a combo of baby blue and rust. The air is warm, this does not bode well.

Not surprisingly, the water is warm as well, bath water. I tell myself to tough it out and stick to the practice. After my warm up, I go to take a drink out of my water bottle, it's almost empty, apparently I've already chugged 20oz of water. Using this a good opportunity to cool off, I refill it and get out of the pool for 2 minutes to bring down my core temperature. I repeat this a couple more times, downing a half gallon of water in less than 1.5 hours, and still feel dehydrated. To make matters even more unpleasant, I can feel the skin on my hands cracking from being dryed out by the chlorine in the water.

Last night's swim practice, the water was refreshing when I got in, but after a thousand yards, I was plenty warm again.

I can't wait until open water swimming begins so I can swim without overheating.