MICHIGAN
- Ann Arbor
Wentashaw Recreation Center
SGOL Link
B-
Decent gutters, lane ropes, 25 yards
and a minipace clock at the shallow end.
Five dollar entrance fee, four lanes
wide, no flags and flimsy, pantywaist kickboards. Oh, and the lifeguards make
you shower before you get in the pool. Exactly what is the chlorine for?
I suspect that America's psychiatrists
are prescribing lap swim to cure schizoprenia. Why else would I step out of
the shower and see a woman having a conversation with my pull buoy, and then
nodding when it answered her? I am paranoid enough to think that they were
talking about me and vain enough to think that the buoy was complaining. Hey,
I'm gonna shave my legs tomorrow, ok?
- Mack Pool
SGOL Link
B
Indoors, 6 lanes, 25 yards and the hard styrofoam kickbaords
that I love. Paceclocks too and a masters team although I didn't see them.
The lifeguard has a pierced lip. Admission is just $2.50.
The noon and evening lap swim times
are for one hour only.
Lifeguarding class during lap swim makes
for a wavy pool, and the loudmouth instructor repeatedly interrupted my procrastinating
with tips on rescuing drownees who may have a spinal injury.
- Flint
YMCA
SGOL Link
C-
Cool water, 25 yards, clock, five or
six lanes, flags.
No lane ropes, Flint.
This must be what it's like to train at
a mental institution. Every door is locked- at the front desk, you are issued
a set of forty keys. You have to go through a metal detector to take a piss.
Terribly depressing, and of course, no lane ropes. That makes for a smooth
fly set, doesn't it?
Blech.
- Grand
Rapids
Southeast YMCA
SGOL Link
B+
25 meters, nearly cool water, lane line,
pace clocks, indoors, free with a Y card.
It's really hot in here, so even though
the water isn't too bad, the heating will stifle your windpipes. Bring water.
Well, the locker room was closed for cleaning
at the precise moment lap swim ended. I needed to shower, so I changed in
front of the maintenance man. I think it'd been awhile for both of us, because
he didn't seem to mind and neither did I.
- Ford
Natatorium @ Grand Rapids Community College
SGOL Link A
25 meters by 25 yards, kickboards, indoors,
paceclocks, free workout with the Masters team.
Like every college pool I've ever spent
three hours trying to find, this one is tucked away in a building whose name
has nothing to do with swimming: The Fieldhouse. What would you expect to
find in the Fieldhouse? Weeds and horticulture undergrads, right? Wrong, my
logic-driven friend.
West
Michigan Masters has a 5 pm workout on Friday night; plenty o' time for
me to wake up, enjoy breakfast and swim. Mucho thanks to coaches Brad and
Mikey who squeezed nearly 3000 yards in an hour and muy mucho thanks for the
breaststroke friendly intervals. This is the first Masters workout I've crashed
whose main set wasn't 10 x 200's freestyle on some macho, testoterone inflected
pace.
- Mt Pleasant
SAC Pool at CMU
SGOL Link
B+
25 yards, ropes, clock, flags.
It's rather expensive, ten dollars, although
I managed to sneak in without paying.
Well, if I'd paid for this swim, the score would be lower. Lots
of non-swimmers in this pool. And I mean NON. Example: A woman gets in my
lane. I say, do you want to split? She says yes. Of course I'm thinking a
vertical split. She apparently thought I meant a horizontal split, so she
took the shallow end and starting to float around. We were both surprised
when I crashed into her.
