Originally Posted by
Steve B.
No you don't. You just need to adjust your expectations to a 25 meter pool, which as others have stated is the likely length. I swim 25 yard and 50 meter at my local recreation center. I know my 100 yd free time should be just under 1:50, my 100 meter about 2 min. Depending on which pool I'm in, I set my Garmin Instinct watch to the correct pool length.
My understanding is that it can be a NCAA competitive pool, which is a 50 meter length when long course, or very common is high school length which is usually 25 yard short course. I sometimes swim at our county aquatic center, built for the Goodwill Games maybe 25 years ago. It's an 8 lane 50 meter and longer as it has 2 bulkheads to vary pool length. They usually have it setup for 16 lanes of 25 yards, then 6 lanes in side to side setup that are 25 meters. Go figure.
That's what I did. I took an actual 1450 yards swam (29 yard lengths x 50 laps), which came in at 29 minutes and 45 seconds. Then I had ChatGPT calculate it how fast I was swimming every 25 yards, and it came to almost 31 seconds. So, just about 2 minutes per 100 yards. I think that with a bit of professional direction, I can knock 5-10 seconds off my 100 yard time. There's got to be a few things that I can be doing better.