Throw in the Towel

Cross-training.
It's a lovely thing.
When you're tired of running, you can go work out in some other way.
Like in a swimming pool.  There's nothing quite as fulfilling as swimming through the crisp, cool waters of an Olympic-sized pool on a bright day, swiftly gliding through the water instead of pounding the scorching pavement.
I was lucky to grow up around outdoor pools. Clean, outdoor pools.  Summer meant swim team, college years involved lifeguarding, and there's nothing quite as relaxing as enjoying the newspaper in the morning, dipping your toes poolside while catching up on the funnies.
But now that I've been in the city, I've realized that a good, clean pool is hard to find.  So difficult, in fact, that I often wonder if my California pool experience was some sort of weird hallucinatory dream-state induced by too many print ads.  Those crystal clear waters?  That slightly sweet smell of chlorine, mixed with the whirring sound of a Kirby pool vacuum?  People laughing and tanned, enjoying some BBQ and a margarita poolside while watching their friends take swan dives off a 3 meter?
It might as well be Narnia.

Let me talk about trying to find a decent place to swim laps in this city.

First off, you must understand that the weather dictates EVERYTHING here.  To the extent that water fountains shut off for 8 months out of the year, choosing outerwear is like buying a car, and bus stops are sheltered seating areas.  Imagine then, what happens to the outdoor pools operated by the NYC Dept of Parks and Rec:  much like the water fountains, they run dry for a long time, grey leaves and bits of debris littering their empty caverns, only to be swept out and revived with millions of gallons of chlorinated water by June, signaling the sweet smell of summer fun.  Hark, the return of crystal clear waters!

Or so one imagines.
Try to find a place that is not only large enough to accommodate swimming a full 25 meters (standard lap) from one end to the other, but also clean.  Kudos to you if you can locate a place where the depth dives to more than 3 feet, or the lanes have appropriate markers, or (that holy grail of lap swim) lane dividers.
I worked at an indoor pool for the YMCA on 14th that's actually quite lovely, but flounts questionable locker room behavior.  The Rivebank State Park indoor pool is a nice find, which boasts a great facility with showers even (!), but they charge a fee.  A search for masters swim teams in NYC yields one, if not two, potentially promising basement pool clubs.  But all this intel has been gathered over the past 10 years, so the promise of a free, outdoor, Olympic-sized pool that offers lap swim-only hours is something of a red herring.
Yet, every June, the neighborhoods wait anxiously at the iron gates of the NYC outdoor pools, seeing for the first time in months the promise of a relaxing, sun-drenched afternoon, splashing about in the crystal-clear waters of an Olympic-sized oasis.

I signed up eagerly for the free NYC summer lap swim program online, locating a pool in close proximity to the office, so I could choose to swim in the early morning, or late evening, bookending my work day perfectly. The lap swim program in the summer is free, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to have a cross-training option that involved being outdoors in the glorious sun, out of the humidity for a whole two months until the fall returns.  I had rigorously researched location, vainly seeking out pictures of each pool, trying to determine how well they would suit all the required criteria.  I had stumbled across this one near work while out for a run one afternoon, surprised that it looked so promising.

Bring a lock, towel, and suit, instructed the registration page.  

Off I went, early one morning, to check out the scene.
However, I was too early - like, by a week - and when I arrived at 7am, the pool (in all it's crystal-clear glory), was suspiciously bereft of patrons, and lifeguards, too.  I asked a park attendant who was sweeping nearby about the lap swim schedule, and then discovered that my much-anticipated joy would have to wait until next Monday.
So I waited. Daydreaming about dipping into that cool, wonderful cavern of relaxation, I could hardly wait for the week to be over.  And so July 7th arrived, and that's the day I wanted to weep.

Arriving that evening of July 7th at the local pool, I salmon-ed my way to the deck area, whilst the general neighborhood population swarmed past me out the gates.  Regular pool hours were over, and only pre-registered lap swimmers were allowed in now.  Herds of kids and teens and frazzled moms with strollers streamed past me, many in wet undershirts, soaked boxer shorts, and mismatched two-piece bathing suits.  One kid was sporting only a diaper, though it looked as though he had spent all day in the kiddie pool.

I asked where the lockers were, only to find that the outdoor security space was devoid of a changing room, so I had to trek over to the other end of the park to change into my swim gear inside a 4-stall bathroom, overpopulated by vain teenagers petting down their wet hair and knotting up their wet t-shirts into cute outfits.  Once changed, I trekked back to the lockers, secured my valuables, and giddily headed over to the water.
Finally arriving at the water's edge, I was surprised to find that there were only three lane lines set up for the entire pool, dividing the 50m pool into three large sections.  Apparently, most swimmers were organizing themselves along the end-to-end black lines striping the bottom of the pool, swimming counter-clockwise fashion around the marker, in lieu of having no lane lines to sanction off space.  Ok, I thought, this is a little...grassroots.  But, I got in on the fast end, sliding into that gorgeous water for the first time, my excitement rising, a smile on my face as I was about to begin my FIRST LAPS OF THE SUMMER!
Whoosh, off I went, gliding under the water in a streamline, gazing down at the black stripe on my left, making sure I was steering clear of the swimmers passing on my left, gazing down at the bottom of the pool...
which for some reason looked a little cloudy and here I am swimming past the halfway mark and ohmyGod what is that

I sputtered up, mid stroke, and pulled a large tangled clump off my face.
A tangled clump of hair.
Someone else's hair that had somehow managed to starfish suction its way onto my cheekbone.

That image of the kid in the diaper flashed across my mind.
I started swimming for the end of the lane, trying to quickly end this first lap.
Oh look, there's a scrunchie, roaming along like sagebrush by the 30m mark.
And there's a family of Band-Aids, having lost the original owner, drifting along in the choppy waters.
Now another clump of hair has latched onto my hand, happily along for the ride, and I can't shake it off mid-stroke.
Nope, not going to flip-turn here, for fear that something will end up in my nose and detonate in my sinus tract.
This water is looking cloudy and murky, and I'm pretty sure those are human skin cells, not dust.

1500 meters later, I jumped out, down-trodden by the cloudy, dirty waters I had just forced myself to endure.  I had waited so long, and for what?  Was this what I had to look forward to for the next two months?

...

The reality of the outdoor pool situation is tainted by a little problem called "improper pool attire."

It's no joke, folks.  When your local pool crew tells you to wear a swim cap, you can do us all a favor by complying.  You can do my face a favor, in fact.

Today, I'm headed back, if only to despair once again at the state of the waters.  Fingers crossed it's a bit better, but if not, I'll have to resume the hunt for that elusive perfect outdoor NYC pool.