If you were not worried about contracting the flu, you are fine

I'm in the same position, IM Lanzarote 10 weeks away. I'm still swimming, expecting pools to be shut down soon though. Its a tough one as my swim pace will decrease rapidly if I don't spend time in the water. I am looking at what tool & exercises I can use at home to keep my swimming muscles in good condition.

Gym is not an option, looks like an ideal environment to catch CV-19. Any advice for exercises to do at home is welcome.

It's been a really mild winter, and getting warmer, hopefully OW swimming will start early, If I can get into the water in late April it would be great

I do my swimming at a gym and have the exact same concerns, particularly about the locker room. My solution is to skip the locker room, walk directly to and from the pool, and then come home afterwards to shower. I’m not even rinsing off in the locker room after the swim.

I live around 10 minutes from my gym and normally shower & change there, then head to work, but I’m okay with a little inconvenience under the circumstances.

My routine is to go swim at the Y during lunch, shower, back to work.

A super chlorinated pool like the Y is the safest place there. The rest of the place, not so much. I’m going to avoid it for the foreseeable future. The place is generally very clean but everything about the locker room is a Petri dish. Plus the average age is like 70.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

If you are just bridging for a few 4-6 weeks stretch chords work OK. I use them a couple times a week when I'm swimming. I usually keep it simple and simulate a 20x100 set, by using my typical 100 time as my base. I pick a moderate resistance (20 - 40 lbs), and use a metronome set to my average stroke rate.

My gym is far less crowded than pre Corona days and the pool has even fewer people in it. To me, it's no different than going anywhere else. Stay far enough away from people in the locker room, don't touch your face, lather up right before you head to your car.

I don't have a race for 3 months, but see no reason not to go, especially since swimming is a weak link. Now a restaurant, that's a different story......

my pool is 17 minutes run from office and 22 min from home. I am running to pool and back and going directly into the chlorinated water. Shower at home or office (no one other than me seems to use the shower at office). I am about to shut our office and ask my employees to work from home. I bet the pool etc gets shut in a few days. Generally I am not worried but I want to do my part on the social distancing side.

I was thinking of starting this same protocol at the university rec center where I swim, but I fear the rec center is going to be shut down soon as students have been ask to move out of the dorms. Stay healthy!

I’ve decided to forego swimming for a bit. I swim with Tower 26, usually have 3 or so lanemates plus 3-4 in the next lane over. We do a lot of aerobic and upper aerobic sets and are in close proximity. Noses running as they do in the pool, spitting in the gutter, heavy breathing on short rest intervals. I’m much further away from most everyone in the locker room. Just not worth it to me

My local natatorium is now closed for the next 2 weeks, at least. I swim at a gym, so I still have access to a pool.

For me, the irony of all this is that I'm in the process of having a 20 meter pool built in my backyard, but it won't be finished until May. I'm predicting (and hoping) that all of these issue are gone right about the time my pool is ready.

Ironically, I have a Vasa, but I'm almost not using it all in the midst of this outbreak, just because the pool is for once so empty and pleasant.

I've been using all my pool toys - PB, lava shorts, med paddles, big paddles, snorkel, and even wearing my full wetsuit in for shoulder training (which worked amazingly well to acclimate - landed in the top 15% in my AG in a legit tri recently, which is far better than this once-BBOP AGer ever thought I'd ever swim! Most of that gain was due to pre-race wetsuit acclimation rather than pure swim fitness in my case.)

Once it gets crazy crowded here again though, I'll be back on the Vasa again. For now though I'm gonna swim as much as I can with the pool toys as well to maximize that technical and coordination training of swimming, before adding more oomph from the Vasa for pure pull power.

Pool is open and I'm heading back there today. The gym is closed (separate building) due to it being the main emergency tornado recovery lodging after last week's tornado.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Yea my go to pool has been shut for next 30 days due to the COVID as interpreted by the State Proclamations. Since I swim 4x a wk that's a big loss. Leg still not fully recovered from TPF so cant just pick up extra run miles. Then had a full can of soda thrown at my head (just missed) for no reason an empty road while in bike lane on Tuesday.

Thanks for posting this. I swim in 2 different locations (1 with a master's group; 1 on my own). The pool itself does not bother me. But the risk everywhere else ??? Bad enough having to go to work and deal with that.

I am a BOP swimmer and need it. Those are my recovery days. I suspect USAT Off Road Nationals will be cancelled -- so will focus on bike / run and get those improved.

Just back from Masters and there were probably 3/4 of a normal Masters noon group there. There are also a few lap swimmers which is about the normal number. We had one of the youth coaches filling in and he said his group and all of the kids groups are on hold because of the masses of parents that tend to hang around during their practices. Not sure of the numbers at the 5 AM Masters practices since I never go to them. I’m guessing that the kids going to Olympic trials are still training.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

All Denver rec centers will be closing Monday.

I was going to race Gulf Coast 70.3 on May 9th, but I don't know how that's gunna pan out now...

Best way to keep swim fitness? Stretch cords? (Had a vasa and returned it... it's useless for me.)

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

Typical pool free chlorine is far too high for the virus to survive. Also, the virus does not transmit well, if at all, beyond 6'. If you keep the distance in mind, the chance of becoming infected is probably somewhere between little and none.

Our city closed all city run recreation facilities in line with the school shut down that goes from tomorrow for 3 weeks. They don't want all parents to get bored at home and show up at libraries, gyms, pools, arenas....so pool is shut minimally for 3 weeks. Kind of sucks. Its going to be the first time I miss more than 1 week of swimming in a row in 4 years!

Went for my last swim this morning, along with my doctor buddy who trains most everyday. He says "in this chlorine we are good". But I don't buy it. My friend and I got soo sick once out of a pool session when we were kids. Lane swimming is the perfect exchange of breath contents. The virus would have to be killed instantly and I'm not sure that's the case.
However there were way less people in the facility, that is a plus.

Gym work has made my swimming better, without being in the pool much. Core and mobility work, loosening up the thoracic spine and shoulders. I think I am going to take it outdoors and just do the yoga-fusion thing we have been doing for the past 3 years. Doesn't need much equipment.

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He says "in this chlorine we are good".
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I'd agree with your doctor buddy. The problem is that sooner or later, you have to leave the chlorine and enter the public area. Which has potential to be less good.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

This. If you use a public shower/changeroom before and after the pool, that area sure as heck is not getting cleaned/disinfected to the degree you want, if trying to avoid a highly contagious communicable disease.

I’d like to see some science behind that re covid 19 (as opposed to other coronaviruses previously evaluated, maybe it’s the same, maybe it isn’t)

I listened to Joe Rogan's interview with Michael Osterholm today while spinning regarding COVID-19 and I understood him to say that this virus is more airborne and that washing hands really isn't effective against it (although still a good practice). That leads me to believe that swimming may be just as dangerous if the virus is in the natatorium air and that you could breath it in. Not real reassuring...….

I don't need a study to tell me that if someone wipes their nose/face, then grabs the locker handle to open it, there's potential to transmit disease. Unless you have some sort of changeroom concierge following everyone with a Lysol wipe.

My pool is still open,its outdoors and 50M, the number of people using it on a late Saturday is probably 5 or 6 people. Thats super low density in my book and coupled with the chlorine I just think this activity is a pretty low risk. My daughter fought huge lines in a grocery store this morning, i refused to go with her.

Talking about covid 19 and chlorine.

Couldn’t pay me to go in a locker room these days

Outside pool with no locker room for the win

😎

Keep a few things in mind

1. You actually have an immune system. It can fight things including Covid even at the pool. I seriously doubt the volume of air another swimmer is breathing out relative to all the air around you moves the needle in terms of concentration.
2. The locker room is a different matter. But what is everyone touching that is so bad?. You change without touching anything other than the floor with your feet, put your dry clothes in your bag, shower (yes you will touch a public showerhandle, but you're using soap after) then you will walk to the pool deck and place your bag on the pool deck....you don't have to touch anything else at all
3. Just stay 2m away from others in the change room
4. Whether the pool is a bad location or the deck or the changeroom, you still have to go get groceries at a grocery store. I suspect that spot is worse than the pool. Lots of people touching all kinds of stuff. Its OK, go touch everything and don't touch your face. The virus won't infect us through our hands. Then Purell hands after leaving grocery store and then clean hands at face as soon as entering the house.

What's left that I am missing

1. 
   

That we need to be doing everything in our power to avoid social interaction so that we hopefully do not end up like Lombardy. If we don’t we are fucked and some epidemiological models show millions of infections (yes, most wont have serious symptoms, only a fraction, but we have 1 million hospital beds total and not enough ventilators)

IMO no one’s swim fitness trumps this. Want to stay fit? Go out for a run. Easy to keep your distance.

And yes there are some trips we will have to take, to get food. The conclusion from that is not “well two trips are just as good” (when in reality that is exposure x2).

I seriously don’t get this attitude. I see it on Facebook when people talk about flying to Mexico or Hawaii, “go, you only love once, you’ll be fine”. Selfish, irresponsible and entitled.

And sorry and with all due respect, your “serious doubt” that the 3 people in my lane, or the 4-5 in the next lane over, doing 100s at 90%, breathing heavily, blowing noses into the gutter, etc. are not capable of transmitting the virus to me is not quite the scientific support I’m looking for.

Not addressing the locker room comments because I am not going in there

The Ys in Hampton Roads have suspended their Masters Swim, but the pool is still open. The suspended a number of other group lessons but not Yoga.

The Aquatics Director told the coach that she will not stop us from swimming "they'd probably all meet and swim in a drainage ditch in Hickory".

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All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

Sorry, going to a near empty pool is not in the same category as flying to Hawaii for a vacation. In any case, neither you nor I have the information to decide what is risky or not. If the pool is open, its regarded as having low enough risk. If the flights are open, someone smarter than us decided there is a need for the flights to keep going (there are good reasons why essential flights need to happen for a while yet). If we are allowed to go to the grocery store, someone decided that its better to let people go and get in line than have delivery trucks drive around neighbourhoods and deliver rations of wheat+rice+milk+eggs like in war time in some countries.

Don't tell people which workout they can do or not, in that not everyone can go run or ride a bike (or for that matter swim). I closed down my entire company and sent my employees home on full pay (hopefully we will get some work done remotely), potentially costing us around half a million over the next few months (my company is small enough but still...and we can't really afford it and will ideally come out strong on the work we do get done), so its not like I am not doing my part to reduce spread as I think it is HIGH RISK to have a bunch of tech employees working in close quarters all day for 8-12 hrs straight and we would be working against what the Cdn govt is asking us to generally do. Me going to an open pool, is super low risk that I will spread anything (the only place I can catch and spread something is at the pool at this point and they just closed up anyway). My company is closed and I am otherwise exclusively at home seeing no one.

Wait. Neither you or I have the info to determine if swimming in a pool with others is risky.

Yet you “seriously doubt” it is

Have at it then. Good luck

No such thing as self isolation here on the Sunshine Coast in Oz. Was doing laps in my local pool a very short walk from my place here in Coolum and 2k in the staff started pushing the huge inflatable islands into lanes 1-3 and 5-8 and shortly after about 100 little kids from the Coolum Surf Lifesaving Club showed up and started creating the expected havoc.

I lasted another kilometre before I gave up and left,not because of anything to do with the Corona virus but I had to leave before some kid bombed me in my lane and I turned into a grumpy old man. :-)

Back tomorrow for another 4k in the morning..

I pulled the plug today even though the pool is still open for the time being. Will hit the Vasa until further notice. Social distancing/isolation requires an all hands on deck approach. I'm going to try to do my part by only going to places I really need to.

I can doubt if something is risky or not just based on math. I have also swam in countless lightening storms close to shore surrounded by forested hills....the math says I should not die and I never did. But just because I am weighing math, there is no deterministic answer (thus the word "I doubt" versus "I know"). In any case, getting hit by lightening only hurts me. You're saying swimming hurts everyone, but I am saying it hurts everyone way less than going to the grocery store or going to the office (which is why I shut my company down to do my civic duty, I stopped all travel for customer visits to close deals too...all of which hurts badly $$$$ wise....because its the right thing to do to help reduce the spread).

Going to an almost empty pool we are not hurting anyone or hurting society just marginally more than staying in the basement all day hanging out on the internet.

Your statement of "have at it" I interpret as "if you want to die from Covid go swimming" versus "you are screwing all of us over by going swimming and spreading it". "have at it" is generally reserved for "if you want to screw yourself, have at it".

In that case, I would infer that you're saying that swimming in an empty pool is no longer in the same category as catching Covid and spreading it during a long haul flight to Hawaii (your first example).

Vasa sales are hotter than purell right now.

I wish they would keep open for team bookings only...

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http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

That's kind of a selfish way to think about it. It may be true that because of limited contact, you will not have significantly increased your risk of getting COVID-19. However, in order to support your swimming, the pool has to remain open. That means that the pool employees come into contact with more folks. And more folks at the pool come into contact with employees and other patrons. So the probability of further transmission between at least one pair of participants can go up significantly. Since you mentioned math, perhaps you're familiar with the Birthday Paradox. Same deal here.

I know you like to post long diatribes, but really not interested in getting into it with you.

So again, have at it. Whatever it is

Someone gets it

The #1 swim team in the US (NCAP) is suspending all team practices, except for (possibly). a small group of OT qualifiers. That’s until April.

I’ve switched to dryland at home and in the neighbourhood until the crisis abates.

My wife’s office has everyone working from home starting Monday. No announcement from my office yet, but we’re having everyone work from home on Monday as a test to make sure our VPN has sufficient capacity.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I swam this morning. Got in the water at 7:30am on a dark, rainy Saturday morning. Tried like hell to avoid everyone. Sure enough, one effing gray hair floating in the pool but no one else except this one guy I know who blocked my path to the far lane and proceeded to shake my hand. Wtf...The first case of Covid19 just hit the neighboring county today. The guy fled the hospital and was forcibly quarantined at his home. I've had to go to the grocery and it's mayhem and not safe as far as sick people. We have to go there, but not the pool. I can hit the treadmill and trainer. I think that's where I'm at after today. Gotta minimize the risk. Way too many dumbasses out there that are oblivious.

Just to be clear, I am not asking the pools to stay open to support my desire to swim or not. Its a question of "if it is open, how unsafe or not is it to use the pool". Its not up to most of us on ST if pools remain open.

I do agreed, that best thing is to shut the pools. (and you can shut everything other than the grocery stores like they did in parts of Italy). I think that would be best. Until they shut everything people will selectively do things where they feel they are harming no one (whether they are right or wrong is another story).

I personally think they should ground all airplanes too. This is the root cause of all of this spreading from China and personally my parents are 9.5 time zones away on a trip planned before this started (they flew before the first Wuhan positive) and are due to come back in 10 days. But if they get stuck 9.5 time zones away from home, it would still be better for all global flights like all pools being shut down. But assuming the flights are on, they will fly home. But I still prefer if global air travel is shut down even if my parents are stuck (so I am trying to say its not about my needs...I am willing to sacrifice my company needs for which I am the major shareholder and my parents for the greater good and two of my very good friends are airline CEOs) ... its more about risk management.

I went around dinner time tonight. Club was pretty empty as it usually is at this time on a weekend. 2 -4 of us sharing the pool. There are no pool employees to interact with. The pool guy shows up at the end of the day when the pool is closed. I’ve never talked with him. He would still have to do his job if the pool was closed. I am surprised the pool is open but I’m going to keep going if the conditions remain the same. If someone can convince me I need to stop then I’ll stop.

It seems to me that it is more likely that pools and gyms would close if no one went to them.

There is, of course, the separate concern for employees and business owners and their lost revenue and wages. That discussion might get a little too close to politics for reasoned debate, so I'll leave it there.

In any case, the question might well become moot pretty soon. I don't get the sense that many non-essential businesses will remain open much longer.

Add my gym to the list of closures. I normally swim at the 24 Hour Fitness gym near me, and they are all closed as of midnight last night.

Fortunately, there is a good lake nearby that is open for swimming, and it's now warm enough to use it comfortably. So OWS + stretch cords + strength training it is.

Check out Lane 3 membership on our site, http://www.theraceclub.com. Over 50 videos on dryland swimming exercises. You can sign on for a month or longer, or until your pools open, but you will have access to our entire video (230+) and articles (200+) library. Hope it will help you stay in swimming shape during these challenging times!

Gary Hall Sr.

More info: https://ymcaboston.org/...essrelease_final.pdf

I guess I won't be swimming for a long time.

YMCA Raleigh closed yesterday.

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Janyne