Holy moly, I'm getting confused....
Like all of us, I learned early on that a mile is defined as 5280'. Simple math coverts 5280' to 1760 yards. But now I've read that a mile in the pool is 1500 meters, or about 1640 yards. :worms:
I swim at a pool that is 25 yards long, so is a mile 66 lengths (or 1650 yards) of a pool, or is it 70 lengths?
I've also heard folks referring to a lap as what I have always thought of as a length...again I swim at a pool that is 25 yards in length....so isn't a "lap" in this case 50 yards (down and back)?
Please set me straight!
:groovy:
The 1500M freestyle has been an international race since the 1908 Olympics. It was an obvious derivative of the standard running race of the same distance. While the US adopted the international standard of 50M for long course events in the early part of the 20th century, the 25yard pool was too ubiquitous to abandon so yards remained the standard for short course.
For some unknown reason, the 1500M was commonly contested at short course events, even when the rest of the events were swam in yards. That meant the finish line was a rope hung ~10 yards from the end of the pool. In 1963, the NCCA added the extra ~10 yards to the event for the championship so they would finish at the wall. Pretty soon the "1650" became the standard long distance event swam in 25 yard pools instead of the 1500M. Swimmers sometimes called it "the mile" because it was the closest event they had to a mile.
The 1500M freestyle has been an international race since the 1908 Olympics. It was an obvious derivative of the standard running race of the same distance. While the US adopted the international standard of 50M for long course events in the early part of the 20th century, the 25yard pool was too ubiquitous to abandon so yards remained the standard for short course.
For some unknown reason, the 1500M was commonly contested at short course events, even when the rest of the events were swam in yards. That meant the finish line was a rope hung ~10 yards from the end of the pool. In 1963, the NCCA added the extra ~10 yards to the event for the championship so they would finish at the wall. Pretty soon the "1650" became the standard long distance event swam in 25 yard pools instead of the 1500M. Swimmers sometimes called it "the mile" because it was the closest event they had to a mile.
