Bad Pool Math (Page 2)

All right, this settles it once and for all. I have consulted the unquestionable source of Internet wisdom:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_laps_in_an_olympic_size_swimming_pool_equal_a_mile

See, I know the definition of lap and length, but I've always heard swimmers refer to a length as a lap, so that's the jargon I've adopted. I did just read something on USA Swimming where they broke down the 400 IM of the top swimmers (including Phelps, etc.). They referred to the 400 as being 8 laps. It didn't specify if it was a 25- or 50-meter pool, but I would assume 50. If that's the case, USA Swimming is considering a lap to be a length.

They must have been thinking of a 25 meter pool.  That's just crazy!

How many that consider length a lap have a swimming background?

seems like answer.com, goes both ways meaning lap=1 way 

when working as a lap counter for a 500 in a 25 yard pool what would you board say? last I checked 20.  Never heard of a length counter when swimming. 

Congratulations on swimming 1600 yards (whether you want to count this as 32 laps, 64 lengths, or 64 laps)!  Kinda proves we're capable of far more than we realize. 

I count 1 lap as down and back (one lap on a track puts you back at your starting point).  As you've observed, others count laps wrong  

As for keeping track on longer workouts?  How much does it really matter?  In the pool, my swim workouts usually have some structure (300 wu, 6x100, 4x200, 300 cd == 2000 yards) so I only have to count to 4, 6, or maybe 8.  I have a pretty consistent swim pace, so I can swim longer sets by time (500 yards is 8:30ish, so if I stop and it's been 7:30, I know I have one more and if it's 9:25 I've probably gone 11 laps instead of 10).  I'm unlikely to run 5 miles on a track (20 laps) so I don't worry about counting laps on a long run, unless it's 2x2.5 mile laps in which case it's pretty easy to know whether I'm on the first or last lap. 

Cool. I have no idea how many laps/lengths are in most the distances I do (well, simple math can easily fiture it out). But if I have to swim an 800, I just swim an 800, and I keep track of distance traveled in my head (or by looking at the clock), I never count how many lengths of the pool I've traveled. I know a lot of people count 1, 2, 3. For me, it's 50, 100, 150, etc. I know of other people who have been swimming their entire lives and they don't even have to keep track, their body just "knows" when they've covered 500m or 1000m, etc.

Ah, yes, and the length of a track is 400m. So, you could say that you run a lap when you cover the entire length of the track in one direction. You swim a lap when you swim the entire length of the pool in one direction. Haha. Just messin'.