north carolina pools

  • Asheville
    Pool: YMCA 
    SGOL Link 
    Rating: B+ 
    The Good News: 2 indoor 25 yard pools, clocks, equipment boards, pull buoys. 
    The Bad News: What's not to love, people? Why must you embrace negativity? 
    Details: I love Asheville- too bad the comedy club closed. A small town with a nice YMCA, several independent coffee houses and a bunch of left-wing Bush hating audience members. It was heaven while it lasted. 

  • Charlotte 
    Pool: Harris YMCA 
    SGOL Link 
    Rating: B- 
    The Good News: 25 meters, six lanes, pace clock, boards, pull buoys. 
    The Bad News: Lotto kids in the summertime and the water is warm. (86 degrees). 
    Details: Signs for the top three parking spaces say they are reserved for expectant mothers. The rest of the lot is saved for those of us who use birth control and don't want to contribute to the overpopulation problem. The staff is unfailingly nice and they referred to me as "you all" even though there was just one of me. The shower head gave off a spray of geiser-like strength and I swirled around under it for twenty minutes. 

  • Pool: Marion Deihl Recreation Center 
    SGOL Link 
    Rating: C+ 
    The Good News: Nice deskstaff, friendly lifeguards, 25 meters, six lanes, synchronized paceclocks at each end, kickboards, pulling gear and it's only 2 dollars. 
    The Bad News: Only two lap lanes were open- the other four were taken up by aqua basketball playing brats. Oh and the water is a senior citizenesque warm; high eighties, I'd say. 
    Details: The ancient locker room means dressing in front of fun house mirrors. Move one inch to the left, and you gain forty pounds. Move to the right, and you look like Karen Carpenter the day before she died. Of course, I found the second reflection to be most accurate. Both this pool and the Harris Y had backstroke flags at the shallow end only. Coincidentally, I discovered this fact each time by cracking my skull open on a backstroke flip.

  • Pool: Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center 
    SGOL Link 
    Rating: A 
    The Good News: indoors, fifty meters, 79 degrees, many many paceclocks, lots of equipment. Only three dollars. 
    The Bad News: It was closed for JO's during much of my stay. I was forced into the aforementioned 86 degree pools for nearly a whole week. 
    Details: Oh baby. This pool makes me blush, it is so fine. Deep water, lane ropes and a bulkhead make for some smooth swimming. The lifeguards stay on top of the kids, so it's unlikely that a water polo ball will be thrown at your head. I had my own lane and the water was so crisp and cool, I actually sprinted. Yes, it's true. Me and turnover in the same sentence. 
    The colorful murals painted above the deep end are three panels wide. The middle panel features male divers in a Greg Louganisesque pike. It is flanked by two identical panels of female divers, and these ladies are each approximately 2/10 of a second away from a violent belly flop. I winced whenever I looked up. 

  • Nag's Head 
    Pool: Outerbanks YMCA 
    Rating: D+ 
    The Good News: 25 meters, six lanes, pace clock, boards, pull buoys. 
    The Bad News: Pull out your wallet, swimmers, and bend over because you are about to take it up the ass.
    Details: As any YMCA member knows, the AWAY sticker guarantees either a free workout or at least a cheap one. Except in Nag's Head. If you come during the summertime, (and when else would you go to a beach resort), it's $15.00 per workout, or $47.50 for the week. 

    It's free during the winter. 

    "It's to protect our members," explained an obese front desk lackey. She waved a flabby arm to the pool behind her, which was jam-packed with two members. 

    "Protect them from what?" I asked. 

    "Overcrowding." 

    You wish, honey. If there's any overcrowding happening at this Y, it's around the refridgerator in the employee lunchroom, which itself must be overcrowded with donuts and Muscle-Tone-Be-Gone pills. My boyfriend, who works at the YMCA in New York, pulled out his credit card after I slammed the front door behind me and paid for a week of swims. Not once in six days did I wait for any machine or even have to share a lane. 

    Whores! Scam Artists! Whores! 

    Excuse me. 

    I do feel compelled to promote the Master's team. A new aquatic director, Eugene, had just taken over when my boyfriend and I visited the coastal ruin that is Nag's Head, and he was really nice. He swam for the Dutch Olympic team in 84, and he went to ASU, in Tempe. The cover charge is not his idea, so don't blame him. And after you finish projectile vomiting on the YMCA administrative staff, you'll find that the brand new lap pool is perfect.     

  • Raleigh 
    Pool: Central YMCA 
    SGOL Link 
    Rating: 
    B+ 
    The Good News: 25 yards, rarely crowded, pace clock, lane ropes, boards, pull buoys. 
    The Bad News: Warm Y water, four lanes. 
    Details: This pool gets higher marks than it should because it's convenient- a minute's walk from the Brownstone Hotel, which has worked out a deal- three bucks for a workout. Also, the shower heads are fabuuuuu. 

    Like most Y's, the Raleigh Central lives to vex me. One Friday, I downloaded a particularly nasty workout from SwimInfo's site. I came to the Y fully prepared to swim at least half of it. Imagine my dismay as I walked out to the deck to find the pool drained for an annual cleaning. Well, you will have to imagine it as I was as happy as a clam. The point is, I could have been dismayed, and if I were the type of person who'd wanted to do a hard workout that day, I would have been really pissed. 

  • Pool: Pullen Aquatic Center
    SGOL Link 
    Rating: A 
    The Good News: 50 meters, indoors, lane ropes, kickboards, wide lanes, liberal hours, three dollar cover charge. 
    The Bad News: Carloads of kids on the weekends, one paceclock was working. 
    Details: Well, dear reader, if you don't know how I feel about kids, let me paraphrase opinions expressed elsewhere on this site. Children should be kept in kennels until they are old enough to drive themselves to the doctor. The exception are the children who work for Nike. These are good children whose Dickensian wages and long hours make an excellent running shoe affordable for Laurie. Anyway, this otherwise perfect pool attracts hordes of silly children. The lifeguards, however, are on top of them.


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