Some people have the luxury of being able to afford a gym membership with a pool. Rumor has it those pools can actually go up to 25 meters, or shockingly, 50 meters long. In fact, I hear that the truly blessed calls mileage in a 25 yard pool scy or "short course yardage", as if it's something to be ashamed of. The joy of being able to stroke more than 10 times before turning around must be pretty epic.

Sadly, I am not in that boat. However, I do get to travel to parts of the country that are not as constrained by space as NYC, Salt Lake City being one of them. After asking a travel agent to call around and find the hotel with the largest pool in the area (Marriott Provo!), I am blessed with the best swim training $120/night can buy.

All kidding aside, this is the best pool I have ever had access to since I've started training for triathlons. The hotel even has a smaller, 12 meter indoor pool to draw away the kids. Due to its low level of use, it's best to head to the pool after the sun has set, so you don't see all the dead insects floating around on the surface. I tried to come back the next morning and just couldn't get into the water. Yes, I am a big wimp.

The additional insight I have developed since traveling is that when you're the only one in the pool, you can be a little more flexible with dimensions. This pool is ~16 meters long and 8 meters wide. Therefore, if you swim the "C" path - you can come up with an 18 meter pool with a very awkward push off the wall, further simulating open water swimming (or so I think). Winning!

Sometimes it's good to travel, get away a bit (see my Shelton post below). And when that travel takes you to picturesque locations at altitude, it becomes a tragedy to waste these opportunities. As my brilliant but neurotic high school English teacher once said, you can sleep when you're dead.

So this morning, I ended up driving by BYU and decided to get in a little bit of hill training by taking on that ultimate Mormon date spot, the "Y".

It's just a giant Y placed on the side of a mountain that overlooks campus. There is a nice wide hiking trail that takes you up the side of the mountain, gaining approximately 1100 feet in 1.75 miles, or by my rough math, a 13% grade. I'm pretty sure they don't let semis go down a hill that steep, which is kind of neat.

The trail was gorgeous. I don't need to describe it in any other way. Spring flowers were blooming along the sides and the sun was just starting to peek over the top of the mountain. What I did learn about myself, though, is if I want to do well in this 50K I impulsively registered for this November, I'll need to do more of these repeats. It took me ~15 lung-searing minutes to climb up, partially due to the 6,000 feet of elevation and partially due to me not ever climbing hills of this length. Cooled down with another 4 miles of gentle rolling double-track. Can't wait to explore more over the next few days.