I'm in Mourning

Today was the last day for lap swim at my outdoor pool.

It was a perfect morning. A little below 70. I rode CF to the pool, for the last time this year. The sun was just coming up over the horizon. I really should get lights for CF...that will be next year.

As soon as I got to the pool, I saw someone I just met this year, and she was finishing up, and she commented on being sad that this was the last outdoor lap swim, and wished me a good year! I don't know where she usually swims, but I know she does triathlons, so odds are we will run into one another sometime before next June.

Out on the deck, where I snapped my last picture of the year there:









Boy, am I going to miss this place! This is my first summer of swimming there pretty much every swim I did, except for a couple days when I decided to sleep in and either didn't swim or drove. And I have to credit my former coach, Rich, for getting me to ride a bike there. It was one of those things where at first I didn't think I could make the extra time to ride there and back, but since for most of the summer I'm up with the sun, it wasn't really that difficult to leave many days by 5:30. And once I got used to riding there, well, I really had no excuse to drive. I never did end up buying a lock for CF because I just parked her to the side of the main deck, so no lock necessary.

The first few weeks that I rode I didn't know whether I should cut back my normal rides or not. Well, that turned into a no brainer. I just sort of "forgot" that I was doing this extra riding, even though I did record it in my training log. I ended up putting about 400 miles on CF just riding to and from the pool. And I think that extra riding made me stronger. Not so much faster, but it was just another good thing to add to my training regimen.

I got sort of lazy with my swimming, though. See I just enjoyed swimming outside so much that I wasn't much into the speed thing. But I can swim forever! Even though I didn't swim much in the winter, I got a lot in this summer because I usually just did whatever in yards as meters, and the meters added up to some extra yardage. All good.

But now it's time to say goodbye to swimming outdoors for 9 months. This week I've been thinking about all the different things that have made swimming outside so great, and I've summed them up in a Top 10 list below:

TOP TEN GREAT THINGS ABOUT SWIMMING AT MY 50 METER OUTDOOR POOL

10 I got to swim with a better class of swimmers, and bonus, better looking, than what I generally encounter at my Y. Face it, people who are swimming at 5:30 in the morning are pretty serious. I didn't have to worry about some idiot whacking me or not knowing how to circle swim.

9 Seeing/hearing the trains going by. The pool is right alongside railroad tracks, and every so often I'd hear a commuter train (there are lots of them from 5:30 to 8:30) go by or the low rumble of a freight train. Seeing the commuter trains made me smile--poor schmucks are on a train going to their job and I'm swimming outside!

8 Seeing planes overhead. I don't live that far from O'Hare Airport, so there's a good amount of air traffic, and for some reason, I enjoyed seeing them fly overhead.

7 Wearing two-piece swimsuits. What can I say? I like having a tan, armpits and all! Sure I could wear two-piece suits indoors, too, but I just don't normally.

6 Riding a bike there and back. It made me feel like a kid (and also like I was doing something good for my budget and also the environment) every single time.

5 50 METERS!!! Less counting when you're swimming, say 2.9 miles straight, like I did today.

4 Wide lanes. How can you go wrong with both long and wide? You can't.

3 Finding toys.
I don't know what the dolphin does (float? dive?) , but it was on deck one day when I was swimming in a lane with one of the high school girls, and I thought maybe it was a lucky charm or something for her. But she left, and the dolphin stayed, and I decided to keep it. I supposed I could have thrown it into the huge bin of forgotten toys and towels, but I doubt anyone would claim it. The other thing, I'm not sure what it is--it's like some cat/bear combination that I found at the bottom of the pool last week. You can fill it with water and then squeeze and it shoots out its mouth. I was highly entertained doing this while doing a bit of kicking with a board. I had the cat/bear thing on top and would fill it and squirt it. I am such a dork!

2 Cool morning air and water. There were only a few times this summer where I was actually cold, and there were only a few times when the water was way too warm. Mostly, it was cool morning air and cool water. I don't know for sure, but my guess is the pool temperature was 79-80 most days. We've had glorious summer mornings this year, so usually the air was cooler than the pool. There were many days when I was chilled on the bike, and happy for it.

1 Showering and shaving al fresco.
Now, it's already great to have swum outside in cool air in cool water, but you top it off with a nice shower pretty much outdoors, and what is better than that? The shower/locker room building isn't completely out in the open, but the ceilings are high and there are just screens on the windows and you can see outside while you're in the shower. Sure the showers get kind of gross, but who cares? Having that natural light and fresh air is just the bestest.


Well, all is not lost. We'll run right by the joint during NothingMan, and I'll tip my hat and remember all the fun I had there this summer. We got lucky that the lap swim was extended through today, so 2 extra weeks of outdoor fun, and I'm grateful for that!

I'll get over it...eventually.