Hair care

Back in high school, my hair got so damaged from swimming that I could sculpt it into a mohawk with water alone - no gel or mousse needed.  And I didn't wear it particularly short.

It's not that bad now, but it is definitely taking a toll.  You can still get UltraSwim, at least I found some online, and I remember that working well for me in those days.  But surely there are more and better options now than there were in the late 80s.

So I started looking online.  I didn't find a VAST array of products tailor made for swimming, but there are a handful besides UltraSwim.  I also found message board posts asking what shampoos and conditioners are the best for dealing with the effects of chlorinated pools.  Some responders suggested products made for swimmers, while others reported good luck with other types of shampoo and conditioners not made with the pool in mind.  In fact, a lot of reviews of products specifically for swimming said that they were no better than a good regular shampoo.

Naturally I started making notes of these suggestions and looking them up on Amazon to read user reviews.  It was at that point that I noticed my shampoo decision was reaching OCD levels of research, so why not put it here.

Here is what I am starting with at home.

John Allan's Thick shampoo
(giggedy)

When my old shampoo ran out recently, my wife got me some of this stuff for thin hair.  She is not a fan of shampoos with a lot of bad chemicals.  I find the name both humorous and confusing.  Instead of saying "for thin hair," I suppose the name means what you want your hair to be.  It still sounds like a porno name though.

Teatree Mint shampoo

I really like the smell of this one, so I bought it even though I didn't need shampoo at the time.  I'll probably pick up the matching conditioner at some point too.

Rusk Calm conditioner

And finally I have some of my outgoing conditioner.  It and the Calm shampoo have worked fine for me for years, but they are not up to the task of swimming four or more times a week.  Plus I found that their quality has declined lately, with the shampoo in particular getting more watery.

So here is a short list of products I have compiled for consideration.

• Paul Mitchell Three Shampoo
• Aveeno Nourish + Moisturize Conditioner
• Reflect Sports H2O Swim Conditioner
• Nexxus Humectress Ultimate Moisturizing Conditioner
• UltraSwim Shampoo/Conditioner

I might start with the Paul Mitchell Shampoo.  That one is a clarifying shampoo that promotes its ability to remove chlorine.  I would probably only use this shampoo right after the pool, if that often.  Whatever ingredients are in there to remove chlorine are probably strong and best used in moderation.  Some people online had good success using shampoo like this once a week, and continuing to use regular shampoo the rest of the week.

I hope using clarifying shampoo once a week works out so I can keep using my thick and minty shampoos the rest of the time.  I'll need to figure out a good conditioner though.  To the user reviews!

Punny swimming app

Still no luck getting the Swim.com app to work on my Pebble.  I have done 6 swims with it, and out of that, only one functioned as promised.  I started out optimistic since it worked the first time, but all five of my subsequent attempts to use it failed.  The app was never again able to upload a workout, and only one other time did it track all of my laps (although that time it credited me with 3 laps I did not do).

So I am abandoning the swim.com app for now.  The online tracking would have been nice, but honestly it was a bit of overkill for a non-competitive swimmer.

Next up - SwimIO's swimming app "Kevin Pacey."  This app does not use accelerometers to figure out your laps, instead you enter a pace speed per lap.  So, for example, after telling it that my pool is 25 yards, I enter 40 lengths for distance, and 30 seconds per length as the pace I want to swim at.  Then the watch displays what lap you are on and vibrates when you should be at the wall turning.  So it is all about the pace at which you swim, hence the name.  I first thought that perhaps Kevin Pacey was a well known swim coach or something, but instead it is a play on Kevin Spacey.

Anyway, after using the app twice now, I can say that it does the job.  30 seconds for 25 yards was a little ambitious for me, so I upped it to 35 seconds which worked out better.  You can also press a button to pause the pace if you need a rest.  In the image above, you can see that the swimmer is about 2/3 through length 1 - the screen goes from black to white as you swim).

SwimIO is supposedly also working on a more robust offering called Swim Recorder, but I have not seen any recent updates on that project.  But for now I am happy with using Kevin Pacey.  It does not do any fancy tracking outside the app, but it is better than having to actually press a button on the watch every lap, and so far it seems pretty reliable.

Now that I think of it, Kevin Spacey does know a thing or two about exercise.  Not only did he use a rowing machine on House of Cards, he also enjoyed a good workout in American Beauty.  :)

Pebble still didn't track/synch

Tried again today, this time with the phone's bluetooth off and both the Pebble and Swim.com apps not running on the phone.  Fired up the swim.com app on the watch, and got only at far as 150 yards this time before it stopped tracking.  I finished up, stopped the workout with the Pebble's left button, and turned on bluetooth on the phone, followed by the Pebble and Swim.com apps.  Nothing.

I found this help topic on Swim.com's site that has the following detail:

On the Pebble, it's important that after your workout you hit the center button on your Pebble to enter rest mode/end interval before pushing the left button on your Pebble to get a completed workout confirmation. This is especially important for Pebble users who do not use the interval function when swimming because the Pebble will record a distance of 0 if your first and only interval is not ended in rest mode.

I will try this next time, but I really, I am less concerned about not being able to synch than I am about the watch not tracking the laps properly.

If that doesn't help, I will try Misfit or one of the other couple swimming related apps I saw in the Pebble store.

More notes
Swim.com's twitter: https://twitter.com/swimdotcom
Youtube video where a tester from swim.com details some troubleshooting methods and workarounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqXNxaSr9Vg&feature=youtu.be
Swim.com's knowledge base topics: http://support.swim.com/hc/en-us/categories/200148269-Knowledge-Base