This is just one of those friendly FYI's for all of you contemplating or indeed doing an Ironman swim this year.
I'm pretty sure that most of you know that the Ironman swim distance is 2.4 miles. But what if you want to give that distance a try in your local 25 yard pool?
How many laps would you have to swim? Please note that a lap is defined by me for this purpose as two lengths of the pool, or in other words, swimming 50 yards?
The answer is 84.5 laps to swim the Iron distance in a 25 yard pool.
Now for some of you that may seem like a bloody long way to swim, while for others that would be an easy masters workout.
But I'm willing to bet that for all of us the hardest part of swimming 84.5 laps would be keeping count of the laps.
Have you ever noticed how really difficult it is to keep instructions straight in the pool?
Here's an example of what I mean. My master coach can say something like this, "I went you guys to swim 200 easy, followed by a 100 kick, followed by a 50 build, and finish up with two 25's perfect swim. Do that entire set three times."
Now if I'm standing next to him that pretty much sounds like something I can remember. I mean how hard is it to remember a 200, followed by a 100, followed by a 50 and a couple of 25's?
But when I'm either wet and/or in the pool he might as well be speaking Chinese. My mind seems to only grasp the first few words. "OK, so we swim 200 hundred what," is my inevitable question to my lane mates?
That's why the thought of swimming 84.5 laps seems almost impossible. By the third lap I would be completely lost and wondering if I had swum 2 or 5 laps. I can't even image trying to keep count in the double digits.
So that's why I was so thrilled to find this $20.00 lap counter online today. Click HERE to check it out.
One last thing; if you do decide to go for it one day and swim the iron distance of 84.5 laps be sure to go that extra length of the pool or you'll have to walk all the way around to collect your stuff. ;-)