My New Home

After several days of no swim, I tried out the village pool much nearer the office. This is the first time I've entered the clubhouse and used the pool. Unlike the old pool where I paid a dirt cheap Php3000 PER YEAR, here I shell out Php85 PER ENTRY as an "outsider". A village resident only pays Php25. Too bad the lady wouldn't even allow me to buy a car sticker so I don't need to leave my license at the guard. Oh well, at least there doesn't seem to be much vehicle traffic at the guardhouse - today at least. Well, one thing sure, there's plenty of parking.


There's even a nice playground outside.


The shower area is definitely much better. It's got urinals and a wash basin. But what's this? Flimsy and very short shower curtains?


Hopefully, there won't be any idiots doing their laundry and exhibitionists at the shower stalls. I took a spot at one of the shaded concrete tables. Here's a view of the pool. It has 6 lanes but the outer lanes seem a little cramped.


Apparently, there's a swim club here called the Mako Sharks as seen on this painted sign on the wall. Why they chose a shallow pool to practice is beyond me. Maybe it's the way the pool's maintained.


There's plenty of concrete benches and tables.


One nice thing about the pool is it has 2 ladders on both sides. With no other visual cues for backstroke, they're useful for watching out for the wall on both sides.


It's got 6 lanes, though it's smaller than the old pool. I heard from P that this pool measures 25 x 12.5 YARDS, not meters. The tiles are 8" and seemed to whizzed by when I swam coz I was used to 1-foot tiles. It is shallow though and mostly, the water just reaches my armpits. Thank God I already know how to tread using the eggbeater kick coz it's harder to learn that here.




I'll have to say though that this pool is better maintained. The tiles are white and no mossy green color. Later, a small family came and on my way out, I took more pics of the pool.




So far so good and I think I'll like it here. So this will be home for the time being.

The question is how frequent am I willing to shell out Php85 per week? I definitely am losing feel of the water and so I intend to go everyday at least this week. I've not gotten any swim so long that my sports towel had started to stink. Yah, it smells like a wet dog. I also plan to take out one of my breaks. In lieue of it, I'll just eat bananas at my table. But I'm still undecided which one.

If I take the morning break and cut the afternoon break:
  • Food tastes like lunch. There's more lunch dishes to choose in the morning.
  • I'm going with "lunch" people while having lunch so there's a bit more time to socialize.
  • Eating bananas seem more apt in the afternoon.
  • This will require me to eat lightly for a productive swim.
If I take the afternoon break and cut the morning break:
  • I could "compensate" for tiredness in the swim.
  • I'll feel lighter when I swim coz I've not had my lunch yet.
Anyway, I'm thinking of cutting out the afternoon break and see how it'll work out. Some other things I forget is to put on sunscreen as I realized I hadn't put anything on after taking a shower. So here are the few must do's to remember:
  1. Put on sunscreen even before leaving the office. That'll give the sunscreen to settle on the skin. That means take it out of the swimbag and bring it insdide the office.
  2. Put some ice cubes inside the water bottle. Yup, it also means taking out the bottle and bringing it into the office.
  3. Eat lightly before leaving. No sense feeling too full while swimming.

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