Iron Pol

Spend enough time swimming at a given pool and you will inevitably hear the very undesirable, "We're sorry, the pool is closed because of contamination."  And we all know the most common type of "contamination."

Normally, this is something experienced later in the day, typically during or right after the pool has been swarmed by young kids.  It isn't something expected at 5 a.m. on a Thursday.  And yet...

I walked into the pool, this morning, to see a rather large number of people hanging out in and around the hot tub.  Jerry, a frequent running partner, shook his head at me and said the pool was closed.  Somebody found a dreaded "floater" that would require testing and cleanup.

I walked back into the locker room, drying off, thinking about how to salvage the morning.  The pool was my real goal as I've been dealing with some minor knee pain after a Tuesday night roller blading adventure with a bunch of eighth graders.  It seems I don't bend or bounce as much as in the past, but the concrete has remained exactly as solid as always.

Still, with the pool closed, running was about the only option, so I hit the track for a few lactate threshhold intervals.  If you can't run for distance, run for effect.  Thirty-five minutes later, I was back in the locker room changing so I could spend a few minutes in the hot tub.

Imagine my surprise when I walked onto the pool deck and saw a couple ladies aqua jogging in the pool.  Jokingly, I asked if it was, in fact, a Baby Ruth bar they found in the pool.

"No," came the reply, "But the chlorine levels were high enough that they didn't have to keep the pool shut."

Blink.  Blink.

Blink.

I headed to the hot tub, figuring that would explain why I always feel like my skin is literally sloughing off after I get out of the water.  Just how much chlorine DOES it take to be able to open the pool less than 30 minutes after finding leftover from the previous night floating around the water?