Depressed outdoor East coast swimmer

Very cool. Is it open to non-residents? If so, I'll have to come over and give it a try next summer sometime. Does the Naperville team practice there in the summer? Skip Montanaro You should come down! It is VERY cool!!! The little picture on the website does not do it justice. It's a public pool, so open to anyone. Don't know if the prices will go up, but this summer it was $10 non-residents (which is steep, IMHO) but only $3 for after 5 pm. Since the pool is open till 8 every day but Sunday, this is a deal! Naperville Waves typically practices at the Beach on Wednesday nights and once a month on Sat morning. Academy Bullets (Aurora-based masters team) practices a couple times a month there. We usually do warmup and some sets in the LCM lanes, then head to the deepend. The deepend is huge - I figure it's about 175-200 yards to go straight across and come back. Sometimes we do laps around the circumference. No clue how far that is? Sometimes we do pier sprints where you sprint to the piers, climb out on one side, dive in and sprint to the next (this is my favorite.)

Our outdoor pool is scheduled to close this Saturday, when the indoor pool reopens (closed all summer for renovations -- it's usually open summers). But the outdoor pool is half the size of the indoor and much more crowded since the indoor is closed (and it's getting really cold) -- this year, I'm actually a little tired of it. :frustrated: So I'm looking forward to going back inside. :banana:

The outdoor pool I've been swimming at most of the time this summer stays open year round (actually they say they close it when there is ice on the deck). I have a decision to make, whether to keep swimming there through the winter or go with another team that uses a good indoor pool. I'm interested in year-round tips, is it a good idea to wear a cap, etc?

Fergus Ontario outdoor pool was always kept open during the winter. They had a great swimming club. Tge coach made sure their club had a place to swim. The pool was operated by the Beatty Washiing Machine Company. It was even open the day they had a 48 inch snowfall there.

The outdoor pools in the NYC area just closed too, and the lifeguards are gone from the beach. (Not that that'll keep us from swimming there...) I'd never swum in an indoor pool until going away to college in Chicago. I grew up in Miami, never realizing how lucky I was to be able to train in an outdoor 50-meter pool at my disposal within a five-minute drive of my house. In the summer, it was ridiculously hot; the water temp would get above 86 or so, and we'd jockey for the end lanes where sprinklers would shoot cold water. It was refreshing to swim backstroke under the sprinklers. And we had to deal with daily thunderstorms every afternoon, usually right around the time we were in the water. In the winter, the heater was perpetually broken, so we'd get to practice in the morning and it'd be 55 degrees and dark out and the pool would be just above 70. It was COLD. Some of the guys on our team with very little body fat would literally turn blue and have to get out. (That never was the case with me...) But that was far, far preferable to the 20-yard basement pool that awaited me in Chicago. So depressing. I missed seeing the sun rise during my workout. That and my year-round tan.

The outdoor pools in the NYC area just closed too, and the lifeguards are gone from the beach. (Not that that'll keep us from swimming there...) I'd never swum in an indoor pool until going away to college in Chicago. I grew up in Miami, never realizing how lucky I was to be able to train in an outdoor 50-meter pool at my disposal within a five-minute drive of my house. In the summer, it was ridiculously hot; the water temp would get above 86 or so, and we'd jockey for the end lanes where sprinklers would shoot cold water. It was refreshing to swim backstroke under the sprinklers. And we had to deal with daily thunderstorms every afternoon, usually right around the time we were in the water. In the winter, the heater was perpetually broken, so we'd get to practice in the morning and it'd be 55 degrees and dark out and the pool would be just above 70. It was COLD. Some of the guys on our team with very little body fat would literally turn blue and have to get out. (That never was the case with me...) But that was far, far preferable to the 20-yard basement pool that awaited me in Chicago. So depressing. I missed seeing the sun rise during my workout. That and my year-round tan. Oh, I hear you! I forgot to mention that -- everyone thinks I spend all my time on some exotic beach - they don't believe me when I tell them it's because I swim 4000 yards a day outside. So, it actually went down to 40 in Miami at night? :confused: I didn't think it got that cold. Did they shut off the heat in the summer I hope? That's what I hate about vacationing in Florida - it will be 85 out, sun is blazing, and the !@#$#() pool is heated! I could swim inside if I wanted to be overheated while swimming. Makes no sense to me at all.

Oh, I hear you! I forgot to mention that -- everyone thinks I spend all my time on some exotic beach - they don't believe me when I tell them it's because I swim 4000 yards a day outside. So, it actually went down to 40 in Miami at night? :confused: I didn't think it got that cold. Did they shut off the heat in the summer I hope? That's what I hate about vacationing in Florida - it will be 85 out, sun is blazing, and the !@#$#() pool is heated! I could swim inside if I wanted to be overheated while swimming. Makes no sense to me at all. The heater was definitely off in the summer. It was mostly off in the winter too. :( As for the hot pool issue, you have to understand that Floridians like it bathwater temp. I don't think my mom will dip a toe in a body of water unless it's well above 80 degrees. It got cold at least a couple of times each winter. The temperature pretty much holds steady at around 72 degrees from December to February, unless a cold front comes in and the temp dips down to the high 40s overnight/low 50s. I remember some days when it would get into the 30s at night, but those were few and far between.

I totally feel your pain. At least you got to swim until Labor Day. Our outdoor pool closed August 15th. I have been indoors for 3 weeks. It is awful.:cry: Oh, that is really horrible.

You guys will probably hate me for this, but our outdoor 25 meter pool opens for the season May 1 and is open until Sept. 30. :banana: It's starting to get a bit cool (and dark at first) for the 6:00-8:30 morning lap swim, but the 11:30-1:30 and 5:30-6:30 lap swims are great. :groovy: Oh, I am sooooooooo jealous - are you anywhere near NJ? I may crash it.:laugh2::laugh2:

I live in the SF Bay area and so I figure I'll give the other side of the coin's perspective. Most pools in my area are outdoors, and though they close for recreational swimming in late October, some remain open year-round for lap swimming (as is the case for the pools used by the two local Masters teams). Yes, these pools are heated. But I'm not looking forward to having to run to and from the locker room to the pool when the air temp is in the high 30's/low 40's (it does get that cold overnight/early in the morning out here). Already there have been days in the 50's and that's been chilly enough to make me *almost* wish for an indoor pool! :eek: Do they heat it year round? I would hate that in the warmer weather.