...when I need it the most!
I'm doing Big Shoulders on 9/8, first time, longest OWS I've ever done (previous longest was an Oly tri I did in '10).
Every year, the last 2 weeks of August, my Y closes the pool 'til the day after Labor Day for cleaning and maintenance. I totally get it, not upset about it, but it's right at the shank of my training!
What makes it worse is the fact that:
-The "alternative" pools available to us, at no extra charge (which is nice), open at 6am (my Y opens at 5:30am), and they won't open at 5:30am for those of us who are used to the Y's 5:30 opening--I've asked. I need to be on the road for work by 7am, which leaves me 45 min. to work out. If I was tapering, no problem. But it will be the peak of my training.
-I am on an "away" plan with two other Y's in other towns, and they have much better hours, but I have to travel about an hour to/from each of them.
-(If this sounds terrible--sorry!) I finally found a place for OW workouts--a small, murky lake by a friend's house. It's a private development, so one must have a homeowner's permission to swim there, which I had. My friend died last Friday, 8/10, and she was a widow, so there was no one else living there and her family is selling the house ASAP. I am, of course, deeply saddened that I lost my friend--I was very fond of her--but now I've also lost my OWS training venue.
So...I punt!
I'm open, of course, to creative suggestions, but for now my plan is to go ahead and use the "alternate" pools for a few 45 min. workouts, and make those workouts hard/fast/intense.
I'll also do 3-4 longer workouts at the "away" Y pools.
I'll also step up my cross-training, with strength workouts, cycling and running.
And I'll hope for the best!
(Thanks for reading my rant/whine, and as I said, I'm open to ideas!)
Every year I have the same problem, often worse, and this year is particularly bad. I normally swim at a JCC that follows the Jewish calendar, so it is already closed friday night and saturday, as well as most of September because of the holidays. This makes training for the NYC Little Red Lighthouse (late September race) almost impossible so I don't even enter. I just found a masters group to swim with near work, but their pool shut down for maintenance in late July and will not reopen until Sept. The JCC shut down last week until October for repairs. Until Labor day, I have an outdoor town pool that has 2 lanes for laps, but it is often crowded with "recreational" swimmers who are very slow, and once there are more than 2 people in the lane, I cannot go at pace without running over people and getting into fights because they won't get out of the way. I will just be doing a one mile OW swim on Sept 8 instead, and don't feel I am nearly in the shape that I should be in even for that. I am just resigned to the fact that I won't do as well as I could have, and no way could I have done a longer distance this year.
Every year I have the same problem, often worse, and this year is particularly bad. I normally swim at a JCC that follows the Jewish calendar, so it is already closed friday night and saturday, as well as most of September because of the holidays. This makes training for the NYC Little Red Lighthouse (late September race) almost impossible so I don't even enter. I just found a masters group to swim with near work, but their pool shut down for maintenance in late July and will not reopen until Sept. The JCC shut down last week until October for repairs. Until Labor day, I have an outdoor town pool that has 2 lanes for laps, but it is often crowded with "recreational" swimmers who are very slow, and once there are more than 2 people in the lane, I cannot go at pace without running over people and getting into fights because they won't get out of the way. I will just be doing a one mile OW swim on Sept 8 instead, and don't feel I am nearly in the shape that I should be in even for that. I am just resigned to the fact that I won't do as well as I could have, and no way could I have done a longer distance this year.
