Is your pool too hot !

Yes, Gareth- our 25m pool was way too hot. Old folks doing aquasize etc complained the temp up to 86 degrees. Our only solution was to badger the city to build a new 50m competition pool-so we did-and they did! (smugly)

Like a lot of the other posts here, it's the water aerobes that cause it with their complaining. If they would MOVE a bit in the water instead of sitting on their noodle things and having a watery gossip session........ About a month ago we had a lot of rain, which cooled the pool off to the point where it was beginning to feel comfortable. Alas, in spite of the fact that this is FLORIDA and it was JULY, the powers that be turned on the heat in the pool. I complained about the waste of money and resources in heating a pool in FLORIDA in JULY, but, as you might expect, it fell on deaf ears. I mean the weather forecast was for sunny with a high in the 90s for heaven sakes. Another problem with my pool is that the thermometer is off by about three degrees. They keep the pool at least 82, which is really 85. I offered to buy and donate a new thermometer but was told they were happy with the one they have, which is so old it is held together with tape. When time permits I drive an extra 25 miles to a cooler pool.

Peter Cruise, do you really have a 50m pool in Nanaimo ? I can't believe it, when was it built? The last time I was in Nanaimo was in 2002, was it there then ? I swam on the island in January, 2002 at the Cams masters meet in Cowichan, I was 38 at the time. Were you at that meet ? There are times when I think that I should never have left BC. I miss my old swim coach, swimming at Kits pool, then having a Starbucks Frappuchino on the beach and the Watermania pool in Richmond. Then there is the ski-ing etc, etc. Oh, well, at least I am living on a glorious farm in Mid Wales and the quality of life here is great !

You bet, Gareth. It is 52m with movable bulkheads (very flexible) & a totally separate wave & slide pool w/different water & temp. controls and is about 1 year old or so. No I was not at the Cowichan meet (somehow I always seem to miss their meet, sigh). I was probably suffering from one of the innumerable aches & pains that seem to come with turning 50 (just you wait). Yes, it is a little piece of paradise, but the economy sucks (can't tell I'm in retail, eh?). Oh yes, we kept the 25 m pool open & all the gripers about cold temps hang out there (except for annual pool closure when they flood over to the 50m facility complain about temp. & demonstrate their total contempt for normal pool etiquette)

Gareth, I am inferring from some of your other posts that you are not totally hostile to TI or stroke technique drills in general. You might try alternating a higher intensity set with a slower drill set to let your body shed the excess heat. Would a continuous aerobic set over the space of an hour be better? Well, yes, if aerobic endurance was your goal. However, you can work on other skills, particularly if the water temp is dictating a change. Just a thought. I can be, and frequently am, totally clueless (just ask my wife). Matt

Originally posted by jdut I, too, swim/coach at a pool which is utilized by many different groups (all of which seem to have more weight than the Masters Group, but that's another story)... I've made the same observation, but doesn't that seem bass ackwards? I mean, in nature, warm-blooded animals that swim in cold water develop a layer of fat to insulate them from the cold. Shouldn't those bloated water aerobes have plenty of insulation? Shouldn't the little skinny swimmers be shivering their 5% body fat glutes off? Shouldn't it be the manatee-like water aerobes crying for colder water? Lap swimmers must be working a LOT harder than the manatees.

This hot pool issue drives me mad. It was awful enough the pool was 86 most of the time but occassionally it got to 90 if some guard messed up the thermostat. The hotter it was the happier the water aerobicizers were. Despite the fact that the pool manager is a personal friend and knew it was horrid, apparently some arthritis guildelines dictate bath water. Because, as I've come to learn, going to a pool isn't about fitness, it's about sitting in your human stew gabbing while sitting on a noodle claiming fitness! I found there was nothing I could do but move to a pool for some local teams that was kept, believe it or not, too cold for me. The pain of the first 100 in cold water for a minute or so is much easier to take than sweating your way through a workout. You have to realize that lap swimmers keep heads down while the water "exercisers" have heads above water that they use to berate staff into turning up the temp. Oh, it's so frustrating. Nothing ruins a workout like a hot pool!

conditions in the outdoor 50m pool I swim in. The thing is heated by those above(--meaning God) so you can complain all you want about the temperature and no one on earth can change it! The first weeks in early June are TOO cold and in some summers (not this one for sure) you almost need a few tons of ice to cool it down. This does prevent the complaints of "too cold" from the daily water aerobics class that meets here and the kiddies taking lessons (at 11am) just have to shiver if they're cold. At least the high school pool I swim in during the winter is kept at a decent temp. thanks to the swim coach who has 2 practices a day. The only time it is "warmed up" is late on Friday nights for the Saturday AM classes. That pool is 50 years old and due to be replaced in the next year or two. Regarding the "warming" of the pool in the last hours of the evening--I guess the people running that pool have NEVER heard of timers or computer programs to control water temp?

Gareth - We have the same problem. We share the same YMCA pool with Water Aerobics, Water Therapy and Swim lessons (Kid's, Adult's and Infant's.) Our water stays at 86' year round. I grin and bear it - our Master's team is just one group who uses the pool. The other groups use it 90% of the time and they are paying the bills - at least 90% of it. We have adjusted our workouts to account for the heat. Increase your rest intervals to let your body cool off. Swim shorter sets - most of our sets are 600-800 yards. When we swim "long sets" of more than 1200 yards, I can definately feel the heat. Our coach also grabs the hose and "mists" us during rest intervals. It helps. Drink lots of water. If I had my druthers, I'd prefer to swim in a cooler pool too, but we have to work with this one. Good luck. Michael

You should know better than to give me an opening. Originally posted by Gareth Eckley Maybe ' Shaky's ' pool has space for us ? No! :D At one point I was trying to avoid the crowds in my pool by swimming as late in the evening as possible, the 90 minutes before it closed. One night, about a third of the way through my workout, the jets at the shallow end of the pool began spewing forth hot water. The thermometer in the deep end read 82', but the water filling the shallow end was considerably warmer. I don't know what's worse, swimming in a hot pool or swimming hot, cold, hot, cold... It wasn't a gradual thing; there was a surprisingly well-defined line between the cold water and hot water. Every lap held an unpleasant shock, and it seemed impossible to adjust to it. I complained to the lifeguard about it and asked her to turn off the hot water, so she pulled the thermometer hanging several feet down in the deep end. "It's only 82' in there," she said. "I can't make it any colder than that." I tried in vain to explain that the temperature in the deep end wasn't the problem, that it was the hot water in the shallow end and the difference in temperature from one end of the pool to the other that was a shock. She just didn't get it, and she told me that she had to heat the pool for the people who use the pool in the morning. It turned out that our elderly water aerobes had complained about the pool being too cold in the mornings, so somebody decided the night lifeguards should turn up the heat the night before, just for them. "Turn it up when you close the pool!" I said. "We can't let it heat all night," was the response I got. Huh? The best explanation I could get from her was that they were heating the water the last hour of the evening, then turning it off and letting it cool all night before the pool opened in the morning. Now here's where the real genius kicked in. The water aerobes didn't actually enter the pool until two hours after it opened. "Why don't you just kick on the heat in the morning when you first open the pool?" I asked. "That way it won't screw us up at night, but it will still be ready by the time they get in." "Because the masters team and triathletes who swim in the morning don't like the water that warm." I gave up that discussion right there. For some reason, however, they didn't stick with the strategy of warming the pool the last hour of the day, and the next week it was back to normal. I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing that procedure involved the lifeguards remembering to change the temperature, and I'm betting they just forgot about it until that policy just faded into oblivion.