July 5: My Cranbrook Experience

I decided to skip out on my golf league today to attend swim practice with the team. Normally, swim practice doesn't fall on Thursdays, but not this time. I would have skipped it, but it was at Cranbrook Natatorium again, which is something that I truly wanted to experience.

I'm glad I made the decision to go. I, along with fellow teammate Andrew, met coach Anne early so that we could go on a run. She took us through a trail that winded around the Cranbrook grounds. That place is beautiful. I had never run a trail before, though, and the hills really whupped me, especially because it was so humid out. I made it back in once piece, and was happy to hear Anne's estimate that we had run around four miles. (Really?!)

Then it was onto the swim, which was welcome to me after that hot, exhausting run. Today was an important training day; it was time trials. Our objective was to see how fast we could swim a mile. (The purpose wasn't necessarily to swim fast, but just get a time and improve as the training season progressed.)

After we did our warm ups and a couple of sprints, it was on to the mile swim. Swimming in this pool was SOOOO cool. The water temperature was perfect, and the entire facility was like eye candy. There are two ovals in the roof, one that has a misted cover that lets in natural light, and the other that actually retracts to allow open are to come in. In addition, there are these huge panels that go up to the 40 foot ceiling. These panels can automatically open when the weather is nice, allowing for more fresh air to come through.

My goal, set by my coach, was to swim a mile in under 40 minutes. When I was about 2/3 done, the lights in the facility turned off. I continued swimming, thinking that someone was just trying to change the mood of the place or something. It turns out, however, that during my swim, a huge storm blew in and knocked the power out. When I finished my swim, I watched the pine needles, ebris and rain coming in through the open panels and the roof. All of the panels closed shortly afterwards, and thus we were protected.

When the power was knocked out, the electronic clock stopped too. It was up and running a few minutes later, but played havoc with our times. In the end, I'm not sure what my exact time was, but we estimate that it was somewhere between 35 and 37 minutes. (WOW!) I look forward to my next time trial to see if that is truly accurate.

I hope to swim (and run) at Cranbrook again sometime soon.



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