Category Archives: The swimnerds guide to moving through water.

Cartoons and swimming training information for the obsessive swimmer.

Ch2 Know your pool.

Ch2 The Black line.

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Located on the bottom of most rectangular bodies of water. Can seem endless.
Located on the bottom of most rectangular bodies of water called pools and most definitely always BLACK! There is much talk of the black line, following it, staring at it for kilometres, not wanting to see it for many years. I’ve just discovered it was only in 1869 that competitive swimming was placed into a pool, previously it was all open water. And they did it so that it was organised and over a standard length for race times. See also Black Cross.

 

Ch2 Know your pool.

Ch2. Know your pool. An aerial view.

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Aerial pool view from Ch2 Know your pool. JBarr 2015.
It’s commonly known that swimming requires a body of water to practice in. Somewhere near you there will be one, hopefully heated and with cheap entry fees and few rules. Your average swimming pool is 25m in length with a deep end and a shallow end, contains chlorine to kill bugs and hair (but not in the CSS way see Ch1) and is rectangular in shape. Outdoor 50m pools are less common and just a challenge to ingrained swimmer maths and cold but require less turns and are pleasantly empty once summer finishes. And yes the ocean is wide and beautiful and free but also dark with shadows imagined or real,lonely and bumpy and generally without hot showers unless it’s mid winter and the cold water you just exited makes the cold shower you’ve just entered seem warm, its relative.