Aoife McGrath, 10, delights in spinning in the heated water with para-educator Tami Easley Monday, Dec. 15, 2008, at the Lawrence Indoor Aquatic Center. McGrath was with other school district student for their twice weekly adaptive aquatic program. The heated indoor pool was one of the few hot places to be in Lawrence Monday as temperatures dipped into single digits.

While single-digit temperatures have settled in Lawrence, the heat is still on inside the Lawrence Indoor Aquatic Center.

And die-hard swimmers are taking advantage of it.

“It’s usually the same temperature inside the pool as always and the water’s pretty cold all the time,” said Free State High School senior Alec Wroten, a member of the swim team.

The competition pool is kept at 82 degrees and the air temperature is usually a few degrees warmer than that.

And that’s the cold pool.

“It takes me time, maybe up to 10 minutes, to adjust so my teeth aren’t chattering while I’m swimming,” said Lawrence resident John Studdard.

He prefers the leisure pool, which heats up to 90 degrees and makes the air temperature as high as 95 degrees.

While it’s hot in there, the temperatures are deceiving.

“It’s hard to come in the cold weather and jump in the freezing cold water, but once you get in it, you tend to warm up,” said Krista Thomas, a Lawrence resident.

But the exercise is worth it.

“I used to walk and run but I found that was too hard to do,” Studdard said. “As you get older, you have problems with legs … so I prefer to swim laps.”

Thomas was training for a marathon before she was injured, prompting her dive into swimming.

“I had to start doing some different forms of exercise,” she said.

The cold weather outside doesn’t penetrate through the walls of the aquatic center, but the swimmers do feel it after they finish their laps and head outdoors.

“Your hair usually freezes,” Wroten said.