Swim nemesis...
aoneill69
Posts: 206
in General Chat
Seems the government scheme of handing out free swimming has brought all the swim nemesis out...I had the lot today...the sprinter who jumped in front of everyone, only to stop every length....the old dears bobbing about chatting whilst leaning on the fast lane ropes, the swim walkers, a new one for me slightly larger built ladies wearing t-shirts who try and walk widths and also hang onto the lane ropes for support..and the really fast guy who stopped 5 metres short of both ends to get in front of the pack wtf?....
however one of those days where i laughed at the madnesss of it all and decided it was great training for my next pool based sprint
however one of those days where i laughed at the madnesss of it all and decided it was great training for my next pool based sprint
0
Comments
At the risk of sounding like a whinging Aussie, the city I come from in Australia (only 30000 people) has an Olympic sized pool, opens at 5:45 every monring, and has lane swimming all day. It's rare that there's more than one other person in the lane. It amazes me that with the population here that there's not more proper pools here and the opening times are so short. If pools were more openly available, surely more people would swim and they'd be able to fund constant improvements. It makes such a big difference when swimming is a pleasure.
Sorry, that sounds like a real rant. I'm not normally one of these Aussies who go on about how much better things are in Oz, because I do love it over here and the Tri scene is great. I did have a bigger rant about the cricket though......
Sometimes I want to swim long and slow.
Sometimes I want to swim medium at a reasonable speed.
Sometimes I want to swim short and fast.
It all depends on what i want to train on.
When I swim short and fast (intervals) I will stop every couple of lengths. No excuses. No apologies. I would add that i'm not a complete tosser! I am always considerate to over pool users.
Normally the slower you go the better you can avoid or deal with traffic. But i don't like the idea that anyone wanting to bash out a few hard sprints here and there are put in the 'nemesis' category!
Just my opinion
G
Failing that, i know its getting colder but i have never been stuck behind a breast stroking arse in the sea.
GG
Much like your cricket
I went in once for a long morning swim during public hours and couldn't cope. No such evidence of slow/fast/training divisions amongst the lanes and everywhere I went was either way too slow or too quick.
And vetboy, agree completely. A big thing here in the South (of England!) is the lack of 50m pools, the only major one being in Crawley. In fact, I was speaking to the lady at my local suit hire shop, who said she used to be a swimmer and was selected for the Olympic programme. However, commuting every day to Crawley was too much so she couldn't go for it. Makes me wonder how many other missed opportunities there have been...
Here in Brum we have 2 pools..nope 3 pools struggling or closed recently, one will be flattened & I don't recommend breath holding whilst waiting for a rebuild, one seems to be in suspended animation, one is a long running,on going battle for preservation. Another still has knock down & rebuild plans....BUT we are finally building a 50m pool much needed..as our Aussie points out your average 'one horse town' in Oz has at least one 50m pool, we have very few across the nation....but I believe this one central pool will cost at least 2 local pools, which really should not be the case, most err 'normal/nemesis swimmers' wouldn't want to swim in a 50m pool anyway, so to take that away is not good, plus the point of a local pool is....its locality, a central 50m pool is going to be a journey for most, so not only are we discouraging a fitness activity, but encouraging a car journey with its attendant pollution congestion etc.
Now thats a rant!
I get annoyed by a group of three blokes who all seem to get in at the same time and then chain gang up the pool at medium ish pace. Meaning that you cant overtake them and they wont wait at the end (because then they cant sit on each other's heals and save all the effort). Now technically they are just training, and they all seem like nice blokes. They just have no idea how much pool they are taking up!
As such, i do all of my hard interval sets early in the morning with all the OAPs. Much more civilised, and the fast lane is always free!
I bet if you compared our national squad to Australia's, ours are all better at tumble turning!
As far as ettquette goes, I agree, quite often a quiet word will enlighten them..if not pool lifeguard or pool manager are worth a word. No joy with that, try a written comment, that goes higher up the tree & will have to be responded to, is logged & gives you more ammo if there is no change in the situation.
i think one thing that might help over here is a basic set of etiquette rules being diplayed near the pool/change area. I think that many people don't mean to be a pain, they just don't know any better. I'm just like everyone else in that I do some long swims, and some intervals. If people were taught to take off 5 seconds early for their repeats if it meant not having to swim over someone, stand on the side when resting, etc, it would all flow so much better.
Also the lifeguards being a bit more proactive would help. Moving the slow swimmers into the slow lanes has got to be good for everyone.
i'm not making that up
i would say something but he is about 6'4", built like a brick sh*thouse and appears slightly unhinged