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Various Pool Sizes

ForceDJ
As a winter resident of NE Ft. Lauderdale, FL I have a membership at the Pompano Beach municipal pools. I usually swim at the main aquatics center which is usually set up for 25 SCM, occasionally 50 LCM. The other day I went to swim at the Pompano’s other pool facility, Houston/Sworn Aquatic Center. It was my first time at that pool. Thinking it was 25m, after just a couple laps, and looking at the pace clock, I realized that it’s 25 SCY. Anyway, that got me thinking about the different pools I’ve swam in, and their various sizes. That is, pools that are lined, and set up for lap swimming. What odd-size pool have you swam in?
20 yards — Oliver Bath House, Pitt, PA.
25 yards — numerous
25 meters — numerous
100 ft (33.33 yards) — Deep Eddy Pool, Austin, TX.
35 yards — Naval Station Newport, RI (two indoor pools now razed), and at Fort Meade, MD (outdoor, converted to 25m using Jersey barriers.)
50 yard — Purdue Univ Rec Center, and NAS Jacksonville, FL
50 meter — numerous (Including the Olympic pool in Sydney, Australia where I just narrowly missed learning the hard way that “circle swimming in Australia is in the opposite direction than in North America.) 
Dan
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  • There are a number of pools here in the Philly area that are 55 yards, (including the pool at Upenn, but that is usually set up as one 25 scy pool and one 25 scm pool with a bulkhead in the middle.) Apparently there was a school of thought back in the 1960s that 55 yard pools would be some kind of standard. Note that 30 lengths of a 55 yard pool is 1650 yards, just like 30 lengths of a 50 LCM pool is 1500 meters, making the yards and meters events close to comparable.

    There are also 33 yard pools, including the one at Mermaid Lake where Shoulberg's gang trained in the summer. (I have not swum there.) Some consider it a good training pool to prepare for both SCY and LCM.

    Just down the road from where I live there is an outdoor 49 yard pool. Rumor has it that the pool was intentionally constructed to this peculiar length so that there would be no competition for lane space with competitive teams. Apparently it dd not work because Shoulberg's gang used this pool some in the past too. I trained here (alone). SCY intervals work just about right - that missing yard compensates for the missing turn.

    20 yard pools were somewhat common maybe 1930-1960. A number of mid-western high schools still raced in 20 yard pools back in the 1970s, (but none in my conference).

    When I lived in TN the health club to which I was a member had a 55 foot (18.333 yard) pool. I used to consider 11 lengths (201.67 yards) to be a "200". The extra turns more than compensate for the extra 1.67 yards - one you get adjusted to the oxygen debt of all those turns so those "200s" are faster than scy 200s. I think this is just about the practical limit of the shortest pool one can reasonably train in. My neighbor has a 50 foot pool in his back yard. It's definitely too short for holding a swim workout.

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  • There are a number of pools here in the Philly area that are 55 yards, (including the pool at Upenn, but that is usually set up as one 25 scy pool and one 25 scm pool with a bulkhead in the middle.) Apparently there was a school of thought back in the 1960s that 55 yard pools would be some kind of standard. Note that 30 lengths of a 55 yard pool is 1650 yards, just like 30 lengths of a 50 LCM pool is 1500 meters, making the yards and meters events close to comparable.

    There are also 33 yard pools, including the one at Mermaid Lake where Shoulberg's gang trained in the summer. (I have not swum there.) Some consider it a good training pool to prepare for both SCY and LCM.

    Just down the road from where I live there is an outdoor 49 yard pool. Rumor has it that the pool was intentionally constructed to this peculiar length so that there would be no competition for lane space with competitive teams. Apparently it dd not work because Shoulberg's gang used this pool some in the past too. I trained here (alone). SCY intervals work just about right - that missing yard compensates for the missing turn.

    20 yard pools were somewhat common maybe 1930-1960. A number of mid-western high schools still raced in 20 yard pools back in the 1970s, (but none in my conference).

    When I lived in TN the health club to which I was a member had a 55 foot (18.333 yard) pool. I used to consider 11 lengths (201.67 yards) to be a "200". The extra turns more than compensate for the extra 1.67 yards - one you get adjusted to the oxygen debt of all those turns so those "200s" are faster than scy 200s. I think this is just about the practical limit of the shortest pool one can reasonably train in. My neighbor has a 50 foot pool in his back yard. It's definitely too short for holding a swim workout.

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