Yesterday I ran my pre-paid card for the local pool down to zero. I do this a lot but this was an exact count down to zero. I’ve done this before, and meant to mention it but didn’t get around to it. Here’s a little bit of arithmetic about the swimming cards.

Entry to the pool for an adult is Y380. Pre-paid cards of Y1,000 and Y3,000 are also available at a (I assume non-refundable) discount of 10%. Since I got most days I buy the Y3,000 cards, which cost me Y2,700. The LCM of 380 and 3,000 is 57,000 which is 150 visits using 19 cards. So I’ve been to the pool 150 times since I last flatlined a card exactly. This has cost me Y51,300 (remember the 10% discount for the pre-paid cards).

Doing this has taken me a little more than 150 days because:

  • my local pool is closed on Tuesdays each week for maintenance (and a staff day off, I suspect);
  • it closed for about ten days over the new year holiday period;
  • it is occasinally closed, or only open inconvenient times (it doesn’t open normally until 9am and sometimes is closed to the public from 2pm because it’s a shared facility with a local school who sometimes claim sole usage);
  • I am occasionally ill/convalescent and don’t swim;
  • I don’t swim when travelling;
  • I sometimes don’t swim because I just can’t make the time, such as when acting as your guide for Alastair Reynolds on his first day in Japan.

On days when my local pool is closed and I can arrange it, I swim at a pool once stop away on the JR Sobu line at Kinshichou. I did this for a couple of days at new year, though I did also take a couple of days not swimming when that pool was open.

So far as I can recall I last flatlined a card sometime last autumn, maybe October.

That’s a lot of swimming and, when one adds it up, quite a lot of money. Still, it’s paying off. More about that hopefully within a month or so.