I got to ‘play’ in a super cool ‘toy’ today.  I got to swim in the endless pool, at the C26 Triathlon Hub.

When you follow professional triathletes on social media, you often see some of them swimming in an endless pool.  They talk about how it helps their training and how things like mirrors on the bottom of the pool, help them ‘see’ their technique.  I have always wanted to try out one of these pools.

Having swam in the C26 endless pool today, I have to say it’s a very different experience.  It’s definitely not like swimming in a regular pool.  It’s closer to open water swimming, but it even feels different to that.  In the endless pool, you are swimming against a forced current and it felt exactly that.  It’s like you are swimming upstream in a fast river and getting nowhere.  It took a little getting used to, but eventually you learn the nuances of the machine.

Interestingly, the closer you swim to the ‘front’ of the pool, the easier it feels.  The water flow is a little smoother, when you are close to the jet outlet.  If you get tired and slow down a little, you drift back in the pool and the water gets a little more turbulent.  

After warming up, I swam repeats of 35-40 full strokes. I would then stop and turn up the speed a little, before swimming the next interval.  I got in a good workout and even tried swimming with a speed, that was way too fast for me; I didn’t last long but had fun trying.  

The other really cool thing was watching myself in the mirrors on the bottom of the pool.  I had always wondered how much I was breathing out of my nose, versus my mouth. Today I got that answer; I breath out through my nose a lot.  It was also good to see how my arms were behaving during the stroke.  Just a super cool experience overall.

Later this week, I will get to swim in this pool again, under the watchful eye of my coach.  I am really looking forward getting some tips on how to improve my swim.