A few weeks ago, I went into work early, then around lunchtime tried to use the pool then. Mornings at the rec center near my office can be a little crazy crowded, so I thought that this might be a good way to get some exercise without having to fight for a lane. I was thrilled, then, to get there and find multiple lanes entirely empty. Heaven! Doubly so since mornings have gotten more and more busy over the past month at the pool.

Since then I’d gone for a few lunchtime swims, and with great success. That seems to have been put on hold, though, now that school is out. Julie and I went to the rec center on Monday and discovered that summer camp is now running from 12-3:30pm every day for about two months, taking up almost the entire pool. Ack! So, I finally buckled down and signed up for a lap swimming class through Arlington County’s rec centers and got the final slot; it starts next Monday evening and runs for eight weeks. So that should be fun, at least, and it locks in some time that I will get a good swim in.

I do find it a little funny, though, that now it’s summer the indoor pool that is suddenly so crazy busy. Shouldn’t people be flocking to the outdoor ones?

On a different (running) note, while I enjoy my old Garmin Forerunner 301, I’ve been starting to think it might be a good idea to upgrade it to one that holds onto a signal stronger. The new Garmin Forerunner 405 looks lovely, is nice and small, is supposed to be super-accurate, and you don’t have to plug it in to get the data onto your computer. It also, by all reports, doesn’t work if it gets at all wet. After reading a dozen reviews from runners who all started it with, “I sweat a lot when I run, and this thing is useless as a result…” I realized that the 405 is not for me. There’s the 305, which was the previous model, that I can consider. Much less expensive, but a litle clunky.

Alternately I’m half-tempted to go for the rather-inexpensive 50, which doesn’t use a GPS but a foot-pod instead and which is supposedly pretty accurate. If it is accurate, well, it would certainly make me not have to worry about GPS signals anymore, but instead I guess there’s always the worry that I might have a foot chopped off. (I suspect at the end of the day I will just stick with what I have for now.)