Anyone near Richmond, VA?

Swim at NOVA.

Are you saying that's better than the American Family Fitness place or that's just another place to swim. I see that it isn't very far away from our hotel!

If you want to swim seriously in a pool of proper temperature and well coached, go to NOVA.

Here are the options I know about. NOVA: www.teamunify.com/SubTabGeneric.jsp. Mark's a great coach. No cost, loud music during workout, a funny coach, in the Short Pump area. Disclosure: I swim here. POWM: www.pelusoopenwater.com/. Awesome pool, good coaches, somewhat focused on triathletes. There is a daily fee to use it, around $10 if I remember right. ACAC: http://acac.com/midlothian/. Coached by Jim Miller, former USMS coach of the year, and his assistants. They swim MWF mornings, TTh evenings, and on weekends. ACAC will charge you a daily fee (not cheap but you also can use their gym, which is quite good). I can give you Jim's email if you are interested. I swam there for many years. SwimQuest: www.teamunify.com/TabGeneric.jsp. I don't know if they charge anything and I'm not sure who coaches master. Dudley Duncan, coach of the USA team, is a great coach and I know they sometimes pay for him to travel to USMS nationals. Tuckahoe YMCA has a "masters" group that are not all USMS swimmers. Pool is shallow, the people are friendly, workout is focused on aerobic swimming. I know less about the schedule, I know on some mornings they have 5-6am and 6-7am practices. You should google/call them for more info. PM me if you want more info about any of these. There are also other options, like the JCC, that have some organized swimming that I don't know too much about.

NOVA: www.teamunify.com/SubTabGeneric.jsp. Mark's a great coach. No cost, loud music during workout, a funny coach, in the Short Pump area. Disclosure: I swim here. Thanks! I looked and it is like, maybe 4 miles from our hotel! Would I be able to swim either Saturday morning, Sunday morning or evening or Monday morning? Are you sure there's no cost? Will you be there any of those times? Thanks again!

Have to second Chris' vote for NOVA. I think I've done Peluso too (if they are the 50m Olympic pool). That was sweet.

I am going to try to make that work! I haven't swum in a 50 meter pool since august and it will require me to redo my workout!

Thanks! I looked and it is like, maybe 4 miles from our hotel! Would I be able to swim either Saturday morning, Sunday morning or evening or Monday morning? Are you sure there's no cost? Will you be there any of those times? Thanks again! 1. There are no coached masters practices on the weekend at NOVA, unfortunately. I don't know if POWM has weekend practices, but you can go to the GRAP (ie, SwimRVA/POWM) pool and pay something like $8 to be able to swim there. But check on the website that there is not a meet scheduled, they often have USA-S meets. 2. Yes I'm sure. 3. If you are talking about Monday the 13th, I'm not sure...I'm stuck in the Atlanta airport right now and probably won't be home until 1am at the earliest. If you are talking about other Mondays: sure, I should be there.

Thanks, Chris. Should I contact them about a guest coming or just show up? Do I show my USMS membership card? We arrive this Friday night and will swim either Saturday morning, Sunday morning, Sunday evening or Monday morning. I can also swim across the road at American Family Fitness, so I'm not sure when I'll swim where.

The last time I swam at NOVA I was treated to watching a young 16 yr old Townley Haas workout! 200s on 2:30 all under 1:50 from a push!