TLT wrote:
lightheir wrote:
And swimming in general, is EXPENSIVE. Yeah, I know - you have a free lap pool in your complex, or you have a $2/week super cheap pass to some awesome public noncrowded pool complex, so it costs you nothing. Good on you.
But for most others, pool access is hard, and expensive. I live in Norcal, where tri is really popular compared to most of the country, and I have to shell out $1000+/yr for YMCA pool access for a craptastic circle swim with marked limited hours, and pool temps that I'm pretty sure are in the mid to high 80s all the time.
And logistically, pool time is very tough on the schedule, with all the prep and driving time. If you're a pure swimmer, it works out better, but as a triathlete who's not spending 2 hrs in the pool each session, that 20 min drive to and back from the pool can kill your weekly schedule.
And no, I don't want to hear from all you folks now who want to reply to me saying "my drive is 1 minute", or "my pool is basically free", or "I get free pool access at work", or "I have no kids so going to masters at 6AM before work is no problem". I get it - it works fine for YOU. But for sure, it's a major hurdle for the majority, me included, and I'm way more serious that the average triathlete about it.
So you dont want to hear back from anybody who disagrees with this massively one sided opinion of yours that simply fits your narrative and circumstances? haha classic. Oh and you conveniently put yourself in the majority rather than the minority.
I have no idea of what Norcal is like, but the set up sounds terrible. My £25 per month (which is typical) leisure membership covers gym/classes and a 25m pool to 3 separate leisure centres within 10 minutes drive. The closest one being just 1 mile away. A further 10 minutes and I can pay to use another 3 swimming pools / leisure centres from neighbouring boroughs. They are all public pools, not top of the art performance centres; if I wanted a 50m olympic pool, well thats an hour away in the capital. But the membership to that is about the same price and an amazing deal if you live pretty close to it. I dont even know anywhere which would come close to £1000 per year. We also have several lakes/ponds/rivers nearby which can be used for open water sessions.
Now we've covered off either end of the spectrum, we can probably agree that on average swimming cost/time isn't THAT bad either! Unless you want it to be... like the rest of the sport.
Nope, I still stand by what I said.
Swimming is expensive and time-consuming. Definitely compared to running, and if you live in a not-easy-access area, still expensive even compared to cycling . (I've spent $12kish over 10 years for YMCA pool access - my TOTAL bike expenditures might just exceed half that, and that includes the extravagance of 3 powermeters!)
I know my area really does suck for pool access, but remember - this is Norcal, which has probably an absurdly high # of triathletes compared to the rest of the USA (possibly world). I'll bet a huge percentage of ST forumites live within 2 hrs of me just based on what I see mentioned in posts that a Bay area native would recognize. So even if pool access is not good here, it's the norm for a lot of triathletes and STers.