Depressed outdoor East coast swimmer

You're complaining about 82 degree water being too warm? I wish we could have water that cool....when the air temp gets to 110+ in summer here, we're lucky if the pool water is below 90. I was in my backyard pool yesterday, and it felt refreshing at 86. I'm another year-round outdoor pool swimmer. The water has actually started getting somewhat comfortable this week, although I think I'd love it around 75. As someone else said, it is great for much of the time, but not too pleasant on those chilly winter mornings, when the outside temp can get in the 20s, you have to watch for patches of ice getting to/from the pool, and it is an especially tough walk from pool to locker room when done. Although we swim at the ASU pool facilities, they actually do a pretty good job on water temp (when they can). They use aerators in summer, heat/covers in winter, but not overly warm. There seems to be a temp battle, even among our team....sprinters want it to be 85, distance likes it much cooler. I'd much rather swim outside, I love the fresh air...although I do miss following ceiling tiles when I do back.

I guess I'll stop complaining. In my neck of the woods, it never gets that warm so the pool is always around 75 degrees, which seems fine. In the winter, it'll be cold, but very rarely freezing. I do love swimming outside. The only drawback, other than temperature, is as aztimm points out--backstroke is tough. At my pool, unless you go pre-dawn, you can only swim backstroke in one direction--the rising sun will blind you in the other.

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. You got that right! I'm heading home in October and expect to get in several OW 80+ degree swims!:groovy::groovy::groovy:

masters practices are starting at Rutgers on monday.

masters practices are starting at Rutgers on monday. Water temp?

I guess I'll stop complaining. In my neck of the woods, it never gets that warm so the pool is always around 75 degrees, which seems fine. In the winter, it'll be cold, but very rarely freezing. I do love swimming outside. The only drawback, other than temperature, is as aztimm points out--backstroke is tough. At my pool, unless you go pre-dawn, you can only swim backstroke in one direction--the rising sun will blind you in the other. Oh, that is my FAVORITE temperature! 75-76! Perfect. When I do back, I just try to graze my arm along the lane line lightly every once in awhile and manage to stay straight most of the time. Gotta watch for the guard table so I don't crash into the wall though - sometimes I start daydreaming.:rofl:

I can't believe the summer is over - why do our outdoor pools all close on Labor Day? Lucky you! Ours closed on Monday (last day was Sunday Aug 26, last day of a lousy week, weather-wise, cloudy, very few sunny breaks, while I was at work, with the cloud coverage coming in right as I left the office.) The the whole week of Aug 26 right up to the long weekend was gorgeous and no outdoors pool. To add insult to misery, my usual indoors pool is closed for three weeks of maintenance and the other one I use as an alternate was not too crowded last Friday but I felt like a ton of bricks. I stopped swimming after 20 minutes. Yesterday, I went there again and I knew from the first two lengths that I would have a great day swimming; long easy strokes, moving seemingly without effort, one of those days when you feel you could do a PB. Then half the population of the City showed up (the lower IQ and SA (swimming ability) half). There were about 40 swimmers per lane (of six) in a 25m long pool. Life-guards' IQ even lower. No desire whatsoever to ask extremely slow swimmers to move down, even just one lane from the fast lane to the second fastest. No desire to ask dead slow swimmers to try and swim (swim? Ha Ha!) to the side of the lane to give others a chance to overtake them. Every time I waited for a sufficient gap, letting a swimmer push off and trying to push off when he/she reached a point some 10 to 12 meters away so I wouldn't have to hit my hands on their feet (or worse, between their widely scissoring, and 62 degrees sinking, legs) at the other end, someone, standing by me would push off and cancel the gap. And if I swam my usual, thinking, "OK. I'll just overtake him/her within 5 to 7 meters of the push-off", I'd run into two (land) turtles racing (overtaking) each other coming the other way (at a speed (OK, not speed, but "rate") where they would need an 80m long pool to overtake one another), leaving enough space on my side of the lane for an anorexic eel. About 30 minutes into the swim, I decided that my blood pressure had risen enough and that I did NOT need to have to change my Forum name to 4Strokes. Don't worry, Forumites; I'm not going to repeat this post in the .....rant thread.

not that anyone has written an excel based countdown timer that runs on their computer desktop or anything ;) Good idea. Now, if I had such a program, I'd be counting down to my own favorite, one meet per year: The Winterlude (sometime in Feb.........indoors, naturally), the only LCM event in Ottawa. Now, how depressing is that? Looking forward to February in Ottawa!

Lucky you! Ours closed on Monday (last day was Sunday Aug 26, last day of a lousy week, weather-wise, cloudy, very few sunny breaks, while I was at work, with the cloud coverage coming in right as I left the office.) The the whole week of Aug 26 right up to the long weekend was gorgeous and no outdoors pool. To add insult to misery, my usual indoors pool is closed for three weeks of maintenance and the other one I use as an alternate was not too crowded last Friday but I felt like a ton of bricks. I stopped swimming after 20 minutes. Yesterday, I went there again and I knew from the first two lengths that I would have a great day swimming; long easy strokes, moving seemingly without effort, one of those days when you feel you could do a PB. Then half the population of the City showed up (the lower IQ and SA (swimming ability) half). There were about 40 swimmers per lane (of six) in a 25m long pool. Life-guards' IQ even lower. No desire whatsoever to ask extremely slow swimmers to move down, even just one lane from the fast lane to the second fastest. No desire to ask dead slow swimmers to try and swim (swim? Ha Ha!) to the side of the lane to give others a chance to overtake them. Every time I waited for a sufficient gap, letting a swimmer push off and trying to push off when he/she reached a point some 10 to 12 meters away so I wouldn't have to hit my hands on their feet (or worse, between their widely scissoring, and 62 degrees sinking, legs) at the other end, someone, standing by me would push off and cancel the gap. And if I swam my usual, thinking, "OK. I'll just overtake him/her within 5 to 7 meters of the push-off", I'd run into two (land) turtles racing (overtaking) each other coming the other way (at a speed (OK, not speed, but "rate") where they would need an 80m long pool to overtake one another), leaving enough space on my side of the lane for an anorexic eel. About 30 minutes into the swim, I decided that my blood pressure had risen enough and that I did NOT need to have to change my Forum name to 4Strokes. Don't worry, Forumites; I'm not going to repeat this post in the .....rant thread. LOL, that is too funny, (not really) and sooooo accurate! Isn't there SOMEWHERE else you can swim? That is awful. My pool gets like that maybe once a year and it's enough to scare away all those people who suddenly appear and try to swim with the real swimmers. I am so sorry your pool closed so eary--I remember that week -- cloudy, rainy, miserable. (I actually swam outside until our pool water dipped to 69 - not a problem if the temp outside was warm with sunshine but just one trip indoors cured me!) Then the last week was absolutely perfection. If I had to swim inside I'd be miserable. That's truly a perfect rant post--you should put it there!:D

Drive to the shore and swim in the ocean ..... It's still incredibly warm for this time of year. We swam today and no wetsuits!