Swimming Terminology - Distances

I've had several people tell me that reading a swim workout can be like reading a foreign language.  Luckily, I'm pretty fluent.  Thought I would take the opportunity to share a little of my knowledge.

Here are a few distance related works you might hear when it comes to swimming.

*Your standard pool will be 25 yards.  Some are in meters, some are longer or shorter.  Just to make sure, ask around at your pool to make sure!  These are assuming 25 yard pool:


length - to the other end of the pool, 25 yards

lap - to the other end of the pool and back, 50 yards

50 - the main building block of distance in swimming.  equal to one lap, or two lengths.

100 - equal to two laps or four lengths.

a mile - 1650 yards (or 1500 meters).  Please read this in case you are a science wiz and know that 1650 yards is not exactly a mile by a walking definition. equal to 66 laps or 112 lengths.

yardage - Just how runners track how many miles they have done as "mileage", swimmer track how many yards they have done/will do as their "yardage".  ex:  What is the yardage of today's practice?  


Hope  that gives some of you a jumping off point.  I will be posting these during the next couple of weeks on different things swimming related, so if you have questions or words I can include, please let me know!  Email me:  i*am*faster*in*water@*gmail.com (Just take out the *s!).