Yards or meters?

RE: Yards or meters?

Rob Copeland — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:41:52 GMT

I like the Glenwood Spring (CO) pool. 135 Yards outdoor year round, 90-93F and elevation 5800Ft. There’s something special about a workout outdoor in the middle of a blizzard and you are trying to not overheat.:banana:

RE: Yards or meters?

osterber — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:27:30 GMT

I had fun swimming in the Kitsilano Pool in Vancouver. 150 yards long. -Rick

RE: Yards or meters?

Former Member — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:06:10 GMT

Don't forget the 100 foot pools the WPA constructed all over the place in the late 1930's. Some are still in use today.

RE: Yards or meters?

Michael Blatt — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:37:01 GMT

The pool I learned to swim in (50+ years ago) was 50 yards long (and was not set up for racing widths, so I have no idea how wide it might have been). It had the deep "end" in the middle of the pool with 1 & 3 meter springboards. With the two shallow ends, it could handle at least 6-8 swim lessons concurrently, and was used for LCY racing by the local age group club (no 25's for the youngest age groups in that pool). Last time I looked at the facility, it had been "refurbished" into a 25 yard X 25 meter racing pool + a shallow rec pool + a water park play area, a much more modern configuration. The now 2-year old pool where I live now was built as a 25-yard racing pool; it happens to be 25-meters wide, but has steps along one side so is not set up for 25-meter racing. It serves as the local high school pool also.

RE: Yards or meters?

gobears — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 11:34:30 GMT

Don't forget the 100 foot pools the WPA constructed all over the place in the late 1930's. Some are still in use today. Like the Hearst Gymnasium pool at Cal: calbears.berkeley.edu/insidepage.aspx 33 1/3 yards, with dark tiles. When I was at Cal we used to have some of our Sunday afternoon 3 hour practices there during our heaviest yardage time. Strange but cool.

RE: Yards or meters?

Sojerz — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 08:50:23 GMT

Like the Hearst Gymnasium pool at Cal: calbears.berkeley.edu/insidepage.aspx 33 1/3 yards, with dark tiles. When I was at Cal we used to have some of our Sunday afternoon 3 hour practices there during our heaviest yardage time. Strange but cool. The first pool I learned to swim in and raced (6 and under) outdoors on LI was 33-1/3 yards. I'm now wondering if it was a WPA pool from what gobears and Jim said. It was at Club and not public, so maybe not. It did have gutters. In about 1957 (or thereabouts) it was buried and replcaed by a 25m pool that we all thought was a very strange length at that time. There was (and may still be) a pool in Astoria, NYC that i think was 200m/yd long (tides??) by 50m/yd wide at the middle and 25m/yd wide on each end. It was only a few feet deep at the one end. Swam AAU JOs there in the early '60s and think the Trials were there in '64??

RE: Yards or meters?

Former Member — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 07:19:26 GMT

"The Mission Beach Plunge in Belmont Park opened in May 1925 as the Natatorium. The 60-foot (18 m)-by-175-foot (53 m) swimming pool was at the time the largest salt-water pool in the world, holding 400,000 gallons. The Plunge building enclosing the pool was styled after the Spanish Renaissance architecture of San Diego's Balboa Park structures. The changing rooms were featured in the Tom Cruise film Top Gun." --- Wiki My senior year in HS (Mission Bay HS '63) our team practised here (except on days of good surf when school in general was ignored by large masses of the male student body and even the cooler teachers.) One day Tom Warren (of future Ironman superstardom) showed up. He was our most distinguished alum and swimming for USC at the time. He joined us in what us younger Buccaneers pathetically referred to as a workout, which never amounted to even a half mile, with a turn every 20 yards. He challenged me to "choose the workout," and knowing he was a distance guy, I said let's go alternate 100yd swims, first one guy times one and then the other guys has to beat that time. You start out kinda slow and progress from there. I was a sprinter, so on my second go I went as hard as I could and posted a time I knew he couldn't beat. It was perhaps my greatest moment in HS swimming to beat Tom Warren in a workout, even if the whole workout lasted only about 10 minutes.

RE: Yards or meters?

knelson — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 04:23:23 GMT

Pity that some of the stimulus didn't go to this kind of thing in our era. I agree. It seemed like the perfect time to work on much needed infrastructure projects.

RE: Yards or meters?

jim thornton — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 02:22:04 GMT

The University of Pittsburgh pool was, until a couple summers ago, 55 yards by 25 yards. 55 yards is 50.292 meters, which is 11.496063 inches longer than 50 m. The University used to use a wood bulkhead of just under a foot to shrink the pool for LCM meets. They fixed it permanently to the "right" length two years ago. Pittsburgh also is home to the somewhat eccentrically measured North Park pool: "The swimming pool in North Park was once considered the largest in the world; it holds two and a half million gallons of water (compared to say 20-30,000 gallons in a modern city pool). In the '30s and '40s, before pools proliferated in homes and private organizations, the monstrous North Park Pool seemed a logical response to the "bathing" needs of everyone north of Pittsburgh." www.clpgh.org/.../ppho1.html I think it measures 50 m wide by 110 yards long. A local swimmer, Ronald Gainesford, told me in his youth he raced the 330 yard IM here--three lengths of this gargantuan pool, back in the days when butterfly and breaststroke were the same thing. (Oh, how I wish they would return to this approach today, so that those of us who swim backwards during breaststroke could substitute fly instead.) North Park was one of many great pools built with WPA money following the last Great Depression. Pity that some of the stimulus didn't go to this kind of thing in our era.

RE: Yards or meters?

Midas — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 05:10:18 GMT

At the University of San Francisco, where I used to swim on occasion, they have a LCM pool but set the bulkhead for LCY so there can be a few SCY lanes at the shallow end for weak swimmers. If you're training for LCM, it's certainly better than training in a SCY pool but in no way ideal. Seemed kinda silly to me.

RE: Yards or meters?

__steve__ — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 06:14:26 GMT

I like the idea of LCY

RE: Yards or meters?

aztimm — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:09:58 GMT

Almost all high school and college competition is in a 25 yard pool, and that is not going to change any time soon. So, any new high school or college pool should be 25 yards long. While it would be nice if that new pool was 25 yards times 25 meters or, even better, 25 yards times 50 meters, that's going to cost a lot more to build and maintain. Given financial realities for a lot of schools, there is a good chance that a decent portion of any new construction is going to be of the 6 to 8 lane, 25 yard variety of pool. Agree completely with this. Even the newer pools in the city where I live, those opened 3-5 years ago, are shared with high schools, and are 8-lane 25 yard pools. Even here in the desert, where the majority of pools are outside, 25m pools are much more the exception than the rule. There are 50m pools with bulkheads that can make them 25m. Off the top of my head, I can only think of 1 local pool (other than gym pools) that is 25m, and that one has a 1/2 lane in the long course direction so it is still 8 lanes 25 yards + 8 lanes 25m.

RE: Yards or meters?

knelson — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:44:09 GMT

Given financial realities for a lot of schools, there is a good chance that a decent portion of any new construction is going to be of the 6 to 8 lane, 25 yard variety of pool. This makes sense, but I've seen lots of new 50 meter pools going in. Just in your neck of the woods off the top of my head: Iowa, Ohio State, Kenyon and the aquatic center in Holland are all new 50 meter pools. Also Jenison high school. It seems like lots of communities are thinking if they are going to build a new pool they might as well build it right.

RE: Yards or meters?

tludden — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:22:53 GMT

The majority of the competition pools in the U.S. are 25 yards. One reason for this is most of the pools in use are fairly old. Any new construction is much more likely to be 25 meters or at least accommodate 25 meters through the use of a moveable bulkhead. Almost all high school and college competition is in a 25 yard pool, and that is not going to change any time soon. So, any new high school or college pool should be 25 yards long. While it would be nice if that new pool was 25 yards times 25 meters or, even better, 25 yards times 50 meters, that's going to cost a lot more to build and maintain. Given financial realities for a lot of schools, there is a good chance that a decent portion of any new construction is going to be of the 6 to 8 lane, 25 yard variety of pool.

RE: Yards or meters?

Former Member — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:37:43 GMT

Most are in yards. Some are adjustable with floating docks. Life would be so much easier if everything were metric.

RE: Yards or meters?

orca1946 — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:36:15 GMT

Most pools are in 25 yards. Some newer pools were built to meters in the 80/90's . America never went to the metric system ,so theses are the odd ones.

RE: Yards or meters?

knelson — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 02:08:39 GMT

I've never heard of a 50 yard pool. Any long course pool built in the U.S. these days will be 50 meters. The majority of the competition pools in the U.S. are 25 yards. One reason for this is most of the pools in use are fairly old. Any new construction is much more likely to be 25 meters or at least accommodate 25 meters through the use of a moveable bulkhead.