Does This Pool Taste Funny?

Because Laura and I hate ourselves (and each other) we agreed to meet at a pool this morning at 6:45 for an hour-long swim. Normally, this doesn't sound so bad, but the location wasn't desirable for either of us, meaning we both had to get up even earlier and travel pretty far. The only thing that was going to make the trip worthwhile was the fact that there is a hot tub there and we could sit in that for 15 minutes after our swim was over.

I took all of my swimming gear, including wetsuit with me, as I thought that Laura and I had talked about wearing our wetsuits today. While we did in fact talk about it, I apparently remembered wrong, because when she got there, she didn't have a wetsuit with her. I had brought a bathing suit with me too, so we just wore our regular suits for the swim.

Before this morning, I hadn't been swimming since I was on vacation. And I hadn't been in a pool in a month. I'm not sure that's the best way to be training for a triathlon. I was never really worried about it because I know I'm a good swimmer and with all the running and biking I've been doing, I haven't lost any cardio fitness. Still, it was a shock to have to get into a cold pool this morning. I still don't like that.

Luckily, the pool wasn't too cold and I warmed up almost right away. It was just the getting into the pool that was hard. My objective for today was just to get in and have a nice long swim. I decided that I wouldn't do a swimplan.com workout, but I also didn't want to be continuously swimming either, so I decided to break it up into alternating swimming and kicking. After the first few hundred, I asked Laura if the pool tasted funny to her. She said yes, which made me glad that it wasn't just that I forgot what swimming pools tasted like.

I looked up the pool on the internet to confirm that it was yards (and not meters) and found this interesting tidbit:

Our 25-yard pool is primarily used for recreational aquatics activities and is the first commercial indoor pool in New York State to be primarily disinfected by ozone. This system of purification was chosen to supplement chlorine because of ozone's extraordinary ability to effectively purify water without side effects. Ozone purifies water and air very quickly and efficiently. 3,000 times faster than chlorine. Just as nature uses ozone to protect the earth, we can use ozone to protect ourselves from microorganisms in the pool. The result is crystal clear, purified water.

So, maybe that's why the pool tasted different than a normal swimming pool?

Also, pool rule says, "Flotation devices not supplied by the Y are not permitted", which on the board at the pool included "float suits". Maybe it's good we ended up not wearing our wetsuits?

This was my workout today:
500 yards freestyle
200 yards kick
500 yards freestyle
200 yards kick
500 yards freestyle
200 yards kick
400 yards freestyle

2500 yards (1.42 miles) in 59:15

About half-way through at around the 30-minute mark, I realized that I was starving. Once I realize that I'm hungry, it's hard for me to concentrate on anything else. Laura and I had actually been talking about our plans for the day of the race and what and when we're going to eat. I obviously will need to be eating a lot more than a half of a Clif bar before hitting the water!

All in all, not too bad for my first pool swimming workout in quite some time! I keep having a little bit of doubt about my ability to actually complete an Olympic-distance triathlon in 16 days, but I also know that I've been working really hard for months now and I could do this right now if I had to. I definitely feel better about everything after having been swimming for an hour and realizing that although I'm tired from waking up so early, I'm not physically exhausted and I have a lot of stamina. I just have to keep reminding myself to go out and have fun!