In the (short-course) pool, I feel I can hold 1:35 pace pretty solidly. Like probably for 5k if I had to. But in the open water, I feel like 2:00 is my standard. I do a lot of open-water swimming, but I still feel like I'm way way faster in the pool. Is this everyone's experience?
Now this is a bit of a niche CMV, but I think it's a good one. It's been a while since I lived in the Bronx, but I recall the price of getting into the city being simply outlandish.
When I first lived there, it was $7.25 for an off-peak weekday train ticket, I believe $9.00 for an peak hours weekday train ticket, and on weekends, $4 for a CityTicket, which suddenly felt quite reasonable. After a while, they realized this was a bit unfair, so they expanded the CityTicket system to cover all off-peak trains at a flat rate of $5 per ticket. I believe by that time inflation had taken a bit of a toll, so they raised the peak hours cost to $9.50.
Then, at some point since I have moved away, somebody pointed out that paying $9.50 one way, $19 round-trip, to take a public transportation journey within your own city is a simply outlandish cost, so they decided to change the fares again to be $5.25 off-peak, $7.25 peak hours.
Now. If you actually take this darn thing to work and back on peak hours, it will run you a cool $14.50 a day. And, unless you live within walking distance of a metro north stop AND your destination is directly near Grand Central (or Harlem-125), you will likely be paying a subway or bus fare in addition each direction, which is now $2.90, adding $5.80 to your daily commute cost, bringing it to a whopping $20.30 per day.
I am not aware of any other public transportation systems that expect users within the same city limits to pay a fare of such magnitude. I would change my mind if somebody could offer such an example, or even if they could think of a system that is comparably overpriced for its users. I of course am not completely familiar with all public transportation system in the United States, so I am also just open to hearing other rip-offs.