This weekend I was visiting relatives in San Luis Obispo and wondered if there was a pool I could swim in while I was there.  I called ahead and learned that the answer was yes, and it was right down the street from the first condo we bought back in 1992.  I remember the pool, not for swimming, but because we went down and took showers there for a week while our bathroom was getting remodeled.

I downloaded a pdf on to get the details on hours, cost, sessions, etc..  I learned quickly that this was not a community pool that had lap swimming in the morning and then turned into a family pool later in the day.  It is just for lap swimming and diving.  There were specific hours for lap swimming and the rest of the time was for competitive meets and team practices.

The cost they listed for a session was a ridiculously unreasonable $3 (I paid $20 last week to swim in Chicago for an hour).  However, I noticed that in two years it will come down for me as I enter “Senior” status at age 55.  Then, the city takes a whole 50 cents off for a reduced price of $2.50.

During the three listed lap swim sessions, I noticed that if I got up early, the 6 am session was set up for the long way to take advantage of a full 50 meters.  This would be more than twice the distance of my home pool and offer me more of an opportunity to not have to stop and turn around so much.  I was excited to get there early and see how I would perform.

What I wasn’t excited about on Saturday morning was that it was 48 degrees in San Luis Obispo and this is an outdoor pool.  As I grumbled out the door, I kept telling myself that it would be warmer in the pool (they keep it heated at around 78 degrees) than the air so it will feel good to get into it.

Actually, I was right.  It did feel good to get into it and leave the crisp morning air behind me.  It also felt good to be able to just keep on swimming and not have to turn around just when you get it going on.  It felt even better when I finished the 2,000 meters (1.2 miles) in 50:37 minutes.  20 minutes under the cut-off time at 70.3 Ironman Canada.  That felt very good indeed.