3 August 2024
I almost had a €200 lap swimming session this morning at Piscine Keller, on the western edge of Paris, a stone’s throw from the Seine and a short Metro ride from Roland Garros, where my wife and I are spending today and tomorrow watching the medal matches of both men’s and women’s tennis.
This is a great and a bit funky, 6 lane, 50-meter pool, roughly half under a year-round roof and the other half open to the sky. The roof-covered half gets quite deep, probably approaching three meters, while the sun-soaked shallow end is still deep enough, maybe 1.5 meters. They had four lanes speed-assigned with lane ropes and then the other two lanes open for an even more free-for-all “swimming” area.
For the first ~20 minutes of my swim, I will say that the speed sorting went pretty well. Shout out to the two guys, I think based on their caps, from Team New York Aquatics and the woman wearing the Southern Cal cap - I think you three set a fast enough pace for the lane that caused some people to think twice about joining in. However, when a swim team came in at 10am to take that “rapide” lane, the pool descended into more typical Parisian aquatic chaos.
After having done 1,600M in comparative calm, I was back to “slam-swimming” through the mosh pit. Sometime within the first 300 of this, my watch somehow got stripped from my wrist. It probably took me hundred or so to notice it was gone and then I spent the next 600 swimming slowly, scanning the bottom of the pool to see if I could find it. When those efforts failed, I decided it was a lost cause and swam 2,500 at a more regular pace to get to my 5KM target.
Fortunately, I went to the locker room, consulted Google translate and was able to ask the lifeguard anyone had turned the watch in.
Lo and behold someone had (THANK YOU whoever did this ) and so I didn’t have to add another new sports watch to my €3.50 entry fee!
Happy because my ripped off watch was returned!
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