Continuing my adventures in counting steps, one day this week I strapped on three different devices to compare step counts: My iPhone SE in my pocket An older Fitbit Surge on my left hand My Withings Steel HR on my right arm ... for three different activities: Morning dog walk A 3 mile run-walk on a treadmill My 'travel steps' from the time I got in my car to head to the airport through the flight, rental car pickup and until I reached my hotel I expected to see differences,

Sometimes it takes a little extra sleuthing to find new pools and a way into them, but the return is always worth the effort. I like to think of my morning swim with the LA Swim Club's Masters group today as "East Coast meets West Coast by way of London" as the Harvard-Westlake pool was modeled, in large part, on the London 2012 Olympic pool. As I've swum in both ... ... I can see the connection. Aside from the LA pool being outside and having part of the pool (to the righ

Someday, with my incessant quest to enumerate things, I'll go through my pool list and create a parallel list (or at least count) of the different US Masters Swimming teams I have trained with on my aquatic adventures. Without fail, my training with other teams has included a warm welcome and a good (to great) swim workout. What's more often than not been a bonus is learning something new about the sport of swimming. Today, I was at the exquisite setting of the Westlake (Ca

Part Three - The Bucket List I have already recounted the Olympic Pools I swam in, as well as my near misses. This final post covers all the remaining pools to fill out my Olympic Pool Bucket List. I better start saving my air miles and seizing the moment when I'm in the right city! 1924 Paris Olympic Pool - now reincarnated as Piscine Georges Vallerey: This one kind of hurts as I've been to Paris more than a handful of times between business travel and personal travel, but

I imagine that, when most people think about swimming towns, Mesa, Arizona doesn't automatically rise to the top of mind, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a city that has invested more broadly or spectacularly in swimming facilities than Mesa. When most cities across the country struggle to invest in even one 50 meter pool, Mesa built two, world-class facilities - the Kino Aquatic Center and Skyline Aquatic Center (pictured below). These pools have hosted mega-aquati

When I was doing a bit of research into architect Julia Morgan's pools, I came across this article from the National Trust for Historic Preservation that added a few pools to my wish list. The only one that seemed potentially in my near-term grasp was the Richmond Plunge on a point in the East Bay of San Francisco north of Oakland and Berkeley. I finally managed to align the stars to get in a swim here this past week and have found another pool crush. From the moment I walk

As a slow-twitch distance swimmer myself and fan of watching distance events (see this video for the best 1650 race ever), I was always struck by the oddity of the Olympic swimming event lineup which eliminated the 1500 meter freestyle for women and the 800 meter freestyle for men, events which are both contested at National and World Championships. Finally, the International Olympic Committee has come to their senses and we'll get to see both of these events in the 2020 Oly

My pool list has a few fundamental problems when it comes to enumerating the full-range of my globe-swimming adventures: it only covers pools, I only started tracking these in 2007, and it's focused on where I've done actual workouts If I relax all of those rules, the list of countries in which I've swum outside of the US is much broader ... Countries in which I've swum Canada - our great neighbors to the north are well-represented on my pool list and I've swum in one lake in

My perfect morning when traveling for business is to wake up around 5/5:30am, down some cold espresso and then head out for a walk to a nearby pool with early lap swimming hours. If I can be about 1-2 miles away, this is a perfect way stroll through otherwise busy city streets, taking in the sights while the caffeine wipes the sleep away. Thanks to Apple’s developer conference driving hotel rates to the stratosphere on the Silicon Valley side of the Bay and client meetings in

We're approximately mid-way through the June 1st to 11th "Try Masters Swimming Week." You might think this 11 day week is yet another example that swimmers can't count, but I like to think it's yet more evidence that regular swimming allows you to defy time. But, don't take it from me (I'm biased): check out the science and this sensational story from the Growing Bolder website (a great source for powerful stories of aging with grace, style and impact): Guys like these are m