If your workout involves both running and swimming, chances are you'll eventually find yourself also doing hurdles -- of the mathematical variety. In the U.S., running distances are measured in miles, whereas pools are measured in either yards or meters. So if you're trying to convert your swimming distance and time into the same metric you use for your running, giving you just how fast your stroke is pulling you through the water per mile, you can be faced with a headache. Luckily, the conversion isn't as complicated as you may think.
Convert Your Lap Time to Your Mile Time
Step 1
Determine whether your pool is measured in yards or meters. Most pools in the U.S. are measured in yards.
Step 2
Convert your pool's measurement into miles. There are 1,760 yards in a mile, and 1,609.344 meters in a mile.
Step 3
Observe the distance of one length of the pool, in other words the distance from one end to the other, length-wise. Most pools measured in yards are 25 yards long. For pools measured in meters, most are 25 meters long.
Step 4
Calculate how many laps in your pool equals one mile. One lap in a pool is two lengths, or swimming to the end of the pool, and then swimming back to where you started. So, for pools that are 25 yards long, one lap is 50 yards, and for pools that are 25 meters long, one lap is 50 meters. This means that for the 25 yard-long pool it would take 35.2 laps to equal one mile, or 1,760 divided by 50. For the 25 meter-long pool it would take 32.2 laps to equal one mile, or 1,609.344 divided by 50.
Step 5
Record the amount of time it takes you to swim 35.2 laps in a pool measured in yards, or 32.2 laps in a pool measured in meters. The time it takes you to swim that number of laps in your pool is your swim time per mile.
Tips and Warnings
- It can be easy to lose track of the number of laps you have swum when swimming for long distances, such as a mile. To make it easier, place a log book at the end of your swimming lane and mark off your laps in smaller groups. For example, pause every 10 laps, stop your stopwatch, make a mark indicating the number of laps you have finished, and then re-start your stopwatch and continue.
- If you use a stopwatch or log book, make sure they're waterproof and place them far enough away from the edge of the pool so that they don't accidentally fall in.
Things You'll Need
- Stopwatch
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