Swimmingly ok.

I’ve been threatening to go swimming for a while now and for christmas/birthday I kitted myself out with some swimming items, namely a waterproof mp3 player and some über goggles.

A good thing about swimming is the lack of equipment required. Of course, when I start doing open swimming, I will need a wetsuit and they are super expensive. But that will come later. For now, nothing more is required.

I pretended I was in a miniature biathlon and ran to the pool. It is only about ten minutes away. And when I say “run” I probably don’t mean it in the same sense as your regular athlete. I am to running what the EDL is to race relations, public order and intelligent informed debate.

Glossop swimming pool is housed in a beautiful building, so much nicer than other leisure centres I have tried swimming in. It was built during the victorian era presumably to provide exercise and entertainment for the local millworking population. It has a slight feel of a church about it. Vaulted ceilings, huge windows and ornate metalwork on the balconies. The brickwork isn’t painted, which gives it a warm slightly serene and relaxing air. A further bonus is that it is very clean and well maintained. The water isn’t freezing or too hot. In sum, a pleasant environment to swim in.

Perhaps it was this that made everyone swimming in the pool do so at the pace of a leisurely amble in the park. I went for the lane swim and the ladies only swim that followed it. Lane swim wasn’t bad (although there were no lanes). Ladies swim was massively frustrating. I am generally a modest person and (I like to believe) tend to be lacking bullshit regarding my own abilities. However, I am a good swimmer. I used to swim competitively as a youth and while I was never going to swim at national or even regional level, I do have better technique than most people.

So we’ve established, by me telling you, that I’m a good swimmer. It’s my best sport. The result is that despite being overweight I can go quite fast. Comparatively. Which means that in the pool I was mostly either behind or in front a pool width wall of women swimmers so I couldn’t manage a proper uninterrupted swim. I observed that most women were there with a friend and swam and chatted, stopping for a quick chat, then a bit more swim-chat. Swim-chat means you can’t put your head under the water. Which means you go very, very slowly. It was like experiencing the horror of having to shop in tescos on a saturday and probably for the swim chatters, the same level of exercise. I shouldn’t have a go, because it’s better to exercise than not, but come on! Try at least to break a sweat ladies. I believe that they say you should try to do exercise that renders you “out of breath” three times a week. If you can swim-chat, that’s not really exercise. Maybe it is more of a social thing.

Anyway, that was my experience of swimming. I think I’ll have to go to the early morning sessions if I want a proper swim. I imagine people who want swim-exercise rather than swim-chat go to those sessions.

I tried out my new goggles and mp3 player. And here are the results:

Goggles

Aqua Sphere Vista Goggles

These were absolutely brilliant. They do not let any water in, you can see everything clearly and they do not give you a headache by having to seal so tightly that they cut your circulation off. I recommend them. I think they probably look a bit over the top in the pool, and people probably think you look like an idiot. I ride a bike though, so I’m used to that.

Waterproof MP3

Speedo Aqua Beat Waterproof MP3 Player

I wanted one of these for ages. Swimming is, it has to be said, really dull. I imagine open swimming isn’t. But pool swimming… yawn! I’ve always wanted to listen to music while swimming. And a few years ago I saw a waterproof MP3 player. They were much more expensive then. This one seemed pretty reasonable, so despite quite a few bad reviews, I gave it a go.

The results:

Of course I failed to read that the software is pc only, which actually wouldn’t be too bad as I run windows in virtualisation mode on my mac. BUT they put the software on the mini-cd thing. So I couldn’t load into the laptop which doesn’t have a nasty drawer thing. Anyway… it turns out you can just drag and drop songs onto the drive when it appears on your desktop. Means you can’t order them or create playlists. But then there is no user interface on the player either, so it doesn’t really matter. It is a sub-optimal system for sure, but it is better than nothing.

While Swimming:

Good points:

• It works! You can listen to music while negotiating a wall of swim-chatters.
• The unit is fixed in place on the back of your head with your goggle straps. You could attach with swimsuit straps too, if you’re a lady. It stayed there without any problem at all. I read in reviews that it comes unfastened, but not for me.

Negative points:

• The earphones are really useless. Maybe I have massive earholes, but I couldn’t get the things to stay in. Especially while doing front crawl. My sister informs me that you have to buy the £40 headset in order to make the whole thing work. Which makes it more expensive than I was expecting.

Conclusion:
Was the MP3 player worth it? I believe it would be if the headset would stay in. It does make swimming laps less tedious, which would be even less tedious if there were proper lanes to swim in.