I've trained and competed mostly outside since I've been doing Masters and have noticed that I lose some of my excitement when I compete indoors. I can see better and feel more "happy endorphins" when I'm racing outdoors. If you can relate or have found a way to overcome this, please let me know.
All the different perspectives on this topic are really interesting.
I grew up training and competing largely in the North where, as others have noted, you're lucky to even see an outdoor pool for more than 1-2 months out of the year. In Masters, I've had the opportunity to branch out a bit and trained with a team in an outdoor pool in the summer and even competed in a couple of outdoor pools.
I've noticed that swimming outdoors seems to feel more festive and when the weather is behaving, it can be very pleasant indeed. That being said, I much prefer the indoor venues for a couple of reasons:
1) better predictability of 'weather' in indoor venues. Pools are variable enough without having to worry about temperature, wind, rain (or snow!), sunburns, etc.
2) being prone to migraines, being out in the bright sun and heat can be a trigger. As you can imagine, my races tend not to be great (assuming I can actually make it to the block at all) when I'm fighting a migraine.
3) I'm really bad at swimming backstroke in a straight line without a visual cue on the ceiling.
4) allergies... worse outside, making it hard to breathe and therefore swim.
But even though one might say those are all very valid reasons, I suspect that the heart of it is that I'm more comfortable with indoor swimming because that's just what I'm most used to and grew up doing. Even though it's uncomfortable to get out of my comfort zone, it's a good thing, as someone noted above, and I do try to swim in different environments just for the practice. I'm even considering an open water swim.:bolt:
All the different perspectives on this topic are really interesting.
I grew up training and competing largely in the North where, as others have noted, you're lucky to even see an outdoor pool for more than 1-2 months out of the year. In Masters, I've had the opportunity to branch out a bit and trained with a team in an outdoor pool in the summer and even competed in a couple of outdoor pools.
I've noticed that swimming outdoors seems to feel more festive and when the weather is behaving, it can be very pleasant indeed. That being said, I much prefer the indoor venues for a couple of reasons:
1) better predictability of 'weather' in indoor venues. Pools are variable enough without having to worry about temperature, wind, rain (or snow!), sunburns, etc.
2) being prone to migraines, being out in the bright sun and heat can be a trigger. As you can imagine, my races tend not to be great (assuming I can actually make it to the block at all) when I'm fighting a migraine.
3) I'm really bad at swimming backstroke in a straight line without a visual cue on the ceiling.
4) allergies... worse outside, making it hard to breathe and therefore swim.
But even though one might say those are all very valid reasons, I suspect that the heart of it is that I'm more comfortable with indoor swimming because that's just what I'm most used to and grew up doing. Even though it's uncomfortable to get out of my comfort zone, it's a good thing, as someone noted above, and I do try to swim in different environments just for the practice. I'm even considering an open water swim.:bolt:
