Personal Florida Training Trip

I had a fairly unplanned but wonderful vacation in Florida. I had planned on doing much more swimming during my trip but the opportunities didn't present themselves with limited transportation and time over the holiday. I did get in the water a few times over the 3 weeks I was in the Clearwater, Sebastian, and Marathon Key areas. It was refreshing to swim outdoors in the dead of winter. One of the first places I trained was in Sebastian, FL. Just a local community pool about 15 meters long. I got a few brief workouts in while enjoying the sunshine. While swimming backstroke I kept looking at this certain palm tree on my right. I often wish I could take a picture of what I see while working out. I went back to the pool later to capture what I was looking at. It was a really nice view, the sun was right behind the leaves. It's currently my desktop background reminding me of the warm weather! Days later I was over in the Clearwater, FL area and was told about "The Long Center" a local community center with an Olympic size pool. I checked it out online and found out it was a very reasonably priced $6.00 for non-members. Its probably one of the only indoor facilities in the area. It was well maintained and clean. My only critisim would be that it might have been the loudest pool I've ever swam in. Totally silent above water, but as soon as you put your head under the sound of the water jets was overwhelming. After investigating closer, the jets had a directional piece that forced the water abruptly downward to avoid spraying the swimmers directly. This angled piece essentially made the jet whistle. Multiply this small issue times 100+ jets and it's quite distracting! I'm still really glad I went. I trained there twice and got to use their above average weight room facilities as well. I also noticed their full length "power racks". An elaborate pully system using large water buckets that offer resistance to a swimmer wearing a belt connected to a long cable. It's the first implementation that I've seen actually built into the pool ceiling. The versions we used in college went a maximum of about 12 meters and resembled a weight rack with one pully wheel. This system let the swimmers swim all 50 meters. You can see the blue buckets in the picture. I headed to the Florida Keys after Clearwater.