By way of introduction, I grew up outside of Boston, swam on a rec team til I was in middle school, stopped for YEARS (for a lot of reasons) and got back into lap swimming ... let's say 5 or 6 years ago? I don't feel ready to practice with a masters' team, as I still can only manage maybe 1500 - 1600 yards in an hour, and am not overly well conditioned. (unless someone wants to step in with a lane suited for the "brain still kinda remembers how to swim but body is still catching up" folks)
Anyway, I found myself swimming at the local lake with a friend (lovely: a big roped-off deep area, and they have a sign posting distances of various segments of the deep end, how many laps = 1 mile, etc), and he mentioned he doesn't like pools because you're just kind of bouncing back and forth between the walls, which I agreed with (it can get a little dull, wall to wall, in a 25-yard pool), and it might be nice to find a long course/olympic/50-meter (whatever you want to call it) pool. And of course, the question's been driving me nuts for the past few days and I can't seem to get much of an answer out of google. It looks like MIT's pool is *sometimes* oriented for 50-meters, and the Blodgett Pool at Harvard is as well (sometimes?) and maybe there was (is?) one at Hanscom AFB, but are there any others? I could've sworn I swam at at least one when I was a kid, but since my focus was the water, it could have been in RI or CT for all I know.
So, anybody know of indoor, 50-meter pools in Massachusetts? Let's stick with "east of Worcester" for the moment.
Finding a long course pool anywhere is misery. People working front desk and life guards don't know anything or pretend they know something and provide bad information. I've been trying for months to do my 5k and 10k postal. I've made dozens of phone calls in various cities I may be visiting including my own, been kicked out in the middle of attempts as they were switching lanes to short course, made reservations for hotels in somewhat nearby cities that have 50M pool, only to find they changed their minds about having long course set up...painful. I finally did my 5k today in 85 degree water with ambient temp around 100 (48% humidity). Awesome fun! Good luck in your quest.
I'm getting that sense! Like I said, I *think* I swam in one as a kid, but we might have just been visiting somewhere (Maryland, maybe?) and the pool complex happened to be a long pool. It looks like the only ones that can for-sure be configured that way are Blodgett (Harvard), and the MIT pool (maybe only during off-semester times?), and Hanscom's on-base pool is configured to long course at specific times (and only open to military/staff/family).
(I will say, as someone who works for a gym chain, while our location doesn't have a pool, I try to be as accurate as I can about the pool facilities at the other locations when people ask. One of our locations has a pool with 16-yard long lap lanes! 8-O And a couple of have mystery-length not-quite-25-yard pools?)
Finding a long course pool anywhere is misery. People working front desk and life guards don't know anything or pretend they know something and provide bad information. I've been trying for months to do my 5k and 10k postal. I've made dozens of phone calls in various cities I may be visiting including my own, been kicked out in the middle of attempts as they were switching lanes to short course, made reservations for hotels in somewhat nearby cities that have 50M pool, only to find they changed their minds about having long course set up...painful. I finally did my 5k today in 85 degree water with ambient temp around 100 (48% humidity). Awesome fun! Good luck in your quest.
I'm getting that sense! Like I said, I *think* I swam in one as a kid, but we might have just been visiting somewhere (Maryland, maybe?) and the pool complex happened to be a long pool. It looks like the only ones that can for-sure be configured that way are Blodgett (Harvard), and the MIT pool (maybe only during off-semester times?), and Hanscom's on-base pool is configured to long course at specific times (and only open to military/staff/family).
(I will say, as someone who works for a gym chain, while our location doesn't have a pool, I try to be as accurate as I can about the pool facilities at the other locations when people ask. One of our locations has a pool with 16-yard long lap lanes! 8-O And a couple of have mystery-length not-quite-25-yard pools?)
