Oh yeah! I was back in the water at my local LA Fitness in Barrie at 0600 today. The last time I swam here was the day before Ontario went into lockdown, March 16th, and I had done a piddly little 1,750 yard 'warmup workout' because I was feeling all tired ... had I known that day that it would be four months before I got into a pool again, I would've taken the day off work and swum all day long ;)
Thanks to the excellent work Canadians have been doing in flattening, then driving down the 'curve,' most of the province entered Stage 3 recently, which allowed our gyms to re-open this past Friday, with quite strict physical distancing requirements, and masks required everywhere except the pool.
What this does mean for this 3 lane pool is this:
They are only allowing one swimmer in each of the outside lanes, with the middle lane reserved as a buffer. Unfortunately, they are not implementing a reservation system, so my workout today was as much about getting in some training as it was checking out just how busy the pool is.
I was in the water for 75 minutes for a 3,850 yard IM workout and had the pool to myself the entire time!
For the time being, I'm still going to do the majority of my training in the lakes, while they stay swimmable, but having pools re-opening is just about the greatest thing I needed/wanted to start to feel like life is heading back towards some kind of normal.
Next up: two of the city's community pools re-open on August 7th ... which I'm hoping means that, not long after that, we will get our small Masters team practices going again.
I'll go to bed with a smile on my face, dreaming of swims to come!