Hey gang,
I'm being watchful of the weather (and a free-lance deadline)--so I'm hoping that I don't run into the same problem as I did about a week ago.
At that time, I had set out to do a pretty long workout (need the yards for my open water swim!). Unfortunately, the lifeguards chased us out of the pool b/c of hearing thunder. They told me that they'd wait a half hour, but that the clock would be reset if there was more thunder.
Won't even get started on why this should be the case, but more important for my purposes is to get a sense of what you do if your schedule is tight and the time you set up for swimming a specific workout is thrown out due to something like this (heck, you can substitute other events that close pools, if you want, as the t-storm is just one way such a thing can happen).
Do you wait until who knows how long and hope the pool will reopen? Do something dry-land that will at least use the swimming muscles? Bag it and decide it's not your day? (As it happened, it was last Friday and although I'm not superstitious, mostly, it seemed as if that day was full of things that went wrong. Won't go into all that.)
I want--no, NEED, to make sure I'm staying abreast of the training and I hate missing time for something like that--and probably just need to plan better to go early in the morning when there are fewer thunderstorms--but that said, stuff happens (even early in the morning), so I want to have a good back-up plan--or be all Zen about it and know that over the long haul, I'll be ready.
Thanks for any thoughts!
As a physicist, I tend to agree with this article
www.aquaticsintl.com/.../when-lightning-strikes.aspx
There is no risk of electrocution from lightning in an enclosed pool (or really much of a risk in an outdoor pool, although being outside in a strong thunderstorm isn't the brightest move no matter what medium you're in)
An aquatics director at an indoor pool near my house finally made the situation clear: A lobbying effort by the National Lightning Safety Institute and a certain private entity that has designed a lifeguarding system (they shall remain unnamed), partnered to include indoor pool weather policies in their literature. Why? Well it seems just because they thought it sounded good. Whatever the case, this particular pool could remain open using one lifeguarding system/policy paradigm but when they were encouraged to switch by a "salesman/insurance guy" they quickly discovered they had to close the indoor pool during storms. As usual, there was a reason for the madness and as often happens it was based on politics and perception, not on any supporting evidence.
That's why it's always good to keep two or three pools in the quiver :)
As a physicist, I tend to agree with this article
www.aquaticsintl.com/.../when-lightning-strikes.aspx
There is no risk of electrocution from lightning in an enclosed pool (or really much of a risk in an outdoor pool, although being outside in a strong thunderstorm isn't the brightest move no matter what medium you're in)
An aquatics director at an indoor pool near my house finally made the situation clear: A lobbying effort by the National Lightning Safety Institute and a certain private entity that has designed a lifeguarding system (they shall remain unnamed), partnered to include indoor pool weather policies in their literature. Why? Well it seems just because they thought it sounded good. Whatever the case, this particular pool could remain open using one lifeguarding system/policy paradigm but when they were encouraged to switch by a "salesman/insurance guy" they quickly discovered they had to close the indoor pool during storms. As usual, there was a reason for the madness and as often happens it was based on politics and perception, not on any supporting evidence.
That's why it's always good to keep two or three pools in the quiver :)
