Seasonality and Fiberglass

Last night was an extra TNT swim at the Santa Clara Swim Center. We crammed in 2300 yards, which is pretty good - nearly 2 miles - for an early-season swim. I'm craving more actual intervals (like do 4 x 100 yards on 1:45 kind of a thing) instead of the nebulous 4 x 100 yards with ten seconds rest thing. I think it makes people push harder. Of course, that's hard to do when you've got such varying abilities sharing lanes, so I guess I'll save the intervals for when I swim on my own!

I need to shift my exercise focus from a seasonal one to a more constant one. I'm so used to having a swim season, where you swim your arse off for four months or so and then relax through the summer and fall, then jump back into full force again in the winter/spring. That won't work as a real life approach. I think the CrossFit I was doing in my "off season" over the summer was helpful - my fitness is coming back pretty quickly - but I need to make a concerted effort to keep the workouts/activities constant instead of giving myself such a long break after events.

As for the "fiberglass" part of this post, I went swimming today over lunch. Knowing I won't be in the pool until next week scares me, so I wanted to cram one last swim in before heading out for Thanksgiving. I swam at the Campbell Community Center, which has an open lap swim from 11:30 - 1 every day. I designed a 2100 yard workout for myself that was pretty good:

300 warm-up
4 x 100 IM
4 x 50 yards free
2 x 100 yards free
1 x 200 yards free
2 x 100 yards free
4 x 50 yards free
6 x 75 yards, kick, drill, swim
100 warm down

Not too bad, except that I can feel my form fall apart as I get tired. I know that will get better as I improve but it's frustrating to feel myself get sloppy in the water. Form makes such a difference!

The pool is pretty nice - big locker room, suit dryer (the best invention ever, like a salad spinner for bathing suits), big lockers, and eight lanes of pool space. The water was cooler than normal, as it's been raining and the pool isn't covered, but I enjoy a cooler pool (once I'm warmed up of course! The initial shock is never fun!) so I was happy about that. The body of the pool, however, is fiberglass. Fiberglass pools either leave little invisible splinters in your skin that itch like crazy, or they run your skin raw where you have lots of contact. The bottoms of my feet have lots of contact, as I'm flip-turning and pushing off the wall with every lap.

Now, the bottoms of my feet feel raw and achy. I assume this is from the fiberglass. I'm tempted to get water socks and wear them in that pool to prevent the fiberglass issues.

I suppose it's a small price to pay for increased fitness, but I'd like to know who the genius was that decided fiberglass was the material of choice for pools, where people are constantly rubbing their feet on it?!