Last year I got back into swimming as my primary means of cardio. Man, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it. I swam competitively as a kid and now doing it for exercise is incredibly satisfying - building up that stamina, honing technique as you push yourself to get faster. (Secret bonus: the pool is also the quietest, least-used place at the gym)
Then came a setback - SPINS. Spins like I’d never experienced. Worse than a bottle-of-Single-Malt type spins. Turns out, you have crystals in your ear called Otoconia (or Otolith) that serve as balance, movement and directional indicators. With prolonged head movements (ie: turning side to side to breathe whilst swimming front crawl) these crystals can shift into these semicircular canals in your ear causing extreme dizziness; this is diagnosed as BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo).
Solution? A ‘Swim Snorkel’. As you’d expect, it’s a front mounted breathing tube that ducts straight up the face (rather than to one side as conventional snorkels do) allowing the swimmer to keep their face in the water and keeping the head relatively still. It does look a little ridiculous - I felt like I could have been a STAR WARS extra - but I got used to it in a hurry.
Armed with this thing, I’ve been able to put the hammer down and really get moving in the water. Coupled with my Garmin Vivoactive 3 fitness tracker, and perhaps some tail-winds (tail-currents?), apparently I destroyed a 20 minute kilometer during an open water swim up on the Bruce Peninsula.
(1,437 yards = 1,333 meters = 1.3 kilometers)
Still, a standard 25 meter pool will yield the most accurate reading… Will put it to the test soon.