Yards or meters?

"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.

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??

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.

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.

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.

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

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: