Today marks three weeks in Germany. And in my quest to figure out how to train properly, I have been to 4 different pools so far. I've learned inportant things, like the difference between "freibad" (outdoor) and "hallenbad" (indoor) pools, as well as how to navigate the locker rooms. I was assuming that the pools would be similar to the ones in Poland. I was incorrect.
I went to pool #1 on the first Sunday here. I was pretty pumped...it was the closest one and had a 50m pool. So after a 2+ mile walk, I get there to find that the 50m pool is roped into two 25m sections to allow diving, meaning that there isn't even a wall on the far side. And the shallower section is filled with small children, so it was like swimming in a minefield. After swimming about 500m, I trudged home, discouraged.
Pool #2 involved taking the post shuttle bus to another kaserne and then walking about a kilometer. Except I got lost, so it wound up taking about 45 minutes to get there. But once I did, the front desk lady was very helpful, and the pool itself is pretty good. At least this one had lane markers!
Pool #3 required me to take a taxi. Not that it was far, but it was a bit long to walk and would have involved about 50 minutes on the bus. Also a nice facility, but their lane setup was a bit bizarre. They had double-width lanes, meaning that there was a legitimate passing lane in the center. Unfortunately, there were still people doing the breaststroke in the "schnellbahn." Breast stroke seems to be the default method of swimming here.
I drove to pool #4, now that I have a car. There were basically no lane markers here. At one point, there were so many people in our half of the pool that I had to wedge myself between two other swimmers and had to repeatedly avoid head-on collisions with one lady doing a stroke I can only describe as "backwards flail." I cannot tell you how many times I considered cutting this workout short, but I ultimately finished.
On Monday, I'm going to swim with a local tri club, who has lanes reserved in the evenings. I am really hoping that this will be a better situation...but stay tuned.
