Yards In A Quarter Mile

Anyone who has been involved in the sport of competitive swimming for at least a lilliputian while, has probably wondered- "how many yards is a swimming mile?". This may seem like an absurd question to inquire since it is widely known that a existent mile is equivalent to 1760 yards, but in swimming, this does not always seem to be the case.

In swimming a mile is 1650 yards, which is 110 yards shorter than a real mile. The reason the mile is 1650 yards is because it'south the closest altitude to the Olympic pond event of 1500 meters and was meant to keep swimmers in shape for this outcome during the short course season.

So in short, when it comes to swimming a mile it all actually depends on you as a swimmer to define how long a "swim mile" is. If yous asked a mathematician, scientists, open water swimmer or any regular person for that matter they would all tell y'all that a mile is a mile. Meaning 1760 yards or in the case of the metric arrangement- 1609,34 meters to exist exact.

On the other spectrum of things, if y'all were to enquire a puddle-swimmer they would likely finish upwards telling you lot that a swimming mile is 1650 yards. And when it comes to training then things actually start to get out of hand. Allow me to explain why-

Swimming Blazon	Mile Swim Distance
Competitive Swimming (in a pool)	1650 Yards
Open Water Pond	1760 Yards

The bulk of pool-swimmers and their coaches have a mile swim in training as either 1650 yards or 1650 meters, all depending on the type of pool you lot train in. This is considering most pool-swimmers train in yard or meter pools, based on whether they are in the brusque course or long course swimming season.

Simply for the most part, pool-swimmers take adopted the 1650 yard freestyle every bit a mile swim. (1650 meters is far less mutual). Either way in both cases pool-swimmers (myself included) have decided that a swimming mile is either 110 yards shorter or 44,47 yards longer than an actual mile.

Ask our friends and family why we accept done this and they'd probably finish upwardly telling you how all the chlorine had damaged our encephalon cells over the years, ask us equally competitive pool-swimmers and we'd tell you lot that nosotros are correct and y'all are wrong, without giving much of an explanation every bit to why.

And so if you lot are a regular everyday swimmer, simply wondering how many yards is a swimming mile and want to decide how many laps yous should dish out at your local pool to hitting a mile in distance before heading off to work or school. Then I suggest you go with the standard mile- defined past 1760 yards or 1609,34 meters.

This will equate to roughly 70 lengths in a 25 grand pool (1750 yards) or 65 to 66 lengths in a 25 meter pool (1625 to 1650 meters). If you train in a l meter puddle then information technology volition equate to most 33 lengths in full.

If yous are an open water swimmer and you railroad train in a lap pool throughout the week, and so you tin can besides only follow the guidelines given above to brand sure you build up that base of operations of fettle yous demand to swim that mile race.

For those of usa who aren't all that good at counting laps, or who simply just want to take the easy way out instead of worrying about all of the complicated arguments backside the "mile swim". I suggest y'all check out the Garmin Swim ii swimming watch or consider picking upwards the Form Swim Goggles to help y'all go on track in existent-time of how far you lot have swum.

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And then finally for all my fellow competitive swimmers who are looking to railroad train for the 'mile freestyle swim event'. To yous, I advise doing 66 lengths in a 25 k pool (1650 yards, simply like in the actual upshot) or 60 lengths in a 25 meter puddle (1500m).

Quick tip: If you'd like to continually amend your mile swim, then I suggest you practice timed interval training, meaning time yourself every time you swim it and continually strive to get faster. This is an like shooting fish in a barrel way to get faster without increasing the amount of distance you lot swim.

So why is a swimming mile 1650 yards?

Now that we have finally covered the complicated and highly arguable topic of how many yards is a swimming mile, we are going to move on and actually investigate why a pool mile is not an actual mile, or in other words- why is a swimming mile 1650 yards?

If nosotros were to look at old Olympic records for assist we will discover that the 1896 Olympic Games were the beginning Olympics where pond was included. Fast forward a few years and we find that only 1 Olympics was e'er swum in yards.

This was the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. The St. Louis Olympic games did include an bodily mile swim, but this isn't of much help since pond was done in open up water dorsum and so, not in 50m pools like today.

Move on a bit further to the early on and heart stages of the 20th century and we discover that pond pools were often built in 55 yard distances. This was oftentimes done in the United States, the Britain, and Commonwealth of australia since they all notwithstanding used the imperial organisation dorsum then.

These pools were actually just virtually a pes longer than the 50m pools we use today for long course swim meets.

Anyway, the betoken of this was to make swimming races more than convenient. Since races could be divided upwardly into equal parts of a mile. For example, an 880 yard half-mile swim would fit into exactly sixteen lengths and a 1760 yard mile swim would fit precisely into 32 lengths.

Simply and so in 1965 the Amateur Athletic Matrimony (AAU) decided to scratch long course yard swimming (55 yards) and moved to modify their long course meets to 50 meters in order to better ready professional swimmers of the time for the Olympic Games. (which used 50 meter swimming pools).

The Us finally decided to switch to 50 meter pools for long grade swimming and 25 thousand pools for short form swimming. Today pond is carve up into two seasons, with the long grade 50 meter season typically in the summertime months and the curt course yards season in the winter months.

When nosotros dive back into history we will find that the 1908 Olympic Games included a massive 100 meter pool. Thus the 1500 meter freestyle swim would have been an obvious distance event. Information technology was similar to the 1500 meter running event that athletics fans were familiar with and it supported the metric system used by the overwhelming majority of the globe.

So that is were the 1500 meter freestyle swim event was born, which from that mean solar day became a typical event in long grade swimming. And so subsequently the Usa switched to their organization of 50 meters pools for long class and 25 yard pools for short course, they had to find a way to keep their athletes from existence placed at a disadvantage when traveling to international swim meets during the short course swim flavour.

And that my young man swimmers is were the 1650 thousand freestyle swim was born. The 1650 yard freestyle is the closest equal distance to the 1500 meter pond event (which is a standard long course swim event). To be verbal- 1500 meters well-nigh perfectly equal 1640 yards.

And so what almost likely happened was that the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) decided to supercede the actual 1760 yard mile swim with a newer, more convenient one. So as people grew used to calling the 1650 thou freestyle a mile swim, the name most likely stuck and it is even so called a mile swim today.

Conclusion.

In my opinion, this entire topic is very interesting and as a competitive swimmer myself I thoroughly enjoyed researching it and excavation my nose deep into the history of swimming in order to discover an reply that seemed to make at least somewhat sense.

Then to summarize everything in this commodity-

A swimming mile can either be 1650 yards or 1760 yards depending on whether y'all are a competitive swimmer or an open up h2o swimmer. If you want to train for an actual mile (1760 yards or 1609,34 meters) y'all should swim well-nigh seventy lengths in a 25 yard pool or 65 to 66 lengths in a 25 meter pool.

The 1650 one thousand swimming event is also widely known as a mile swim, although information technology's actually a 110 yards short of a mile. This is considering the United States created the event to better prepare its professional swimmers for the 1500 meter freestyle, which is a standard distance result at whatever international long grade swim contest.

Over the years people simply grew used to calling the 1650 yard freestyle a mile and thus it is all the same called that today.

More swimming manufactures-

References.

Why is a pond mile only 1650 yards? | SwimSwam.
Does Us Pond Have A Short Class Meters Problem? | Swimming Globe Magazine.
Olympic-size pond pool. | Wikipedia.