Terse exchange with woman - lane swimming

A large arm span is a very positive physical asset for swimmers, but you are not spreading your arms as wide as they can go for breast stroke.

So, if PP needs 2 metres for her breast stroke then she may be over 7 foot tall!

Or stop at the end and wait. They have a right to be there, but should be aware of who else is in the lane.

Your arm span is usually the same as your height. Are you saying you are two metres tall? That’s almost 7ft.

Exactly.This clock works swimming is a pain in a neck where you end up stuck behind someone who is too ridiculously slow.Even for the slow lane.

You're that slow that you're holding people up just swim in the general pool.

But they are not blocking you swimming, you are choosing not to enter the lane. Get in the pool and they will start going round and round.
Are you saying you’ve got yourself all ready, walked poolside, seen side by side swimming and walked right out again?

Possibly not. If people are swimming side by side it can put people off attempting to join, it does me.

Not really, my arms need two metres doing breaststroke.

Swimming side by side means that you are blocking anyone else from coming in and using the lane, aside from anything else, so it should never be done

When the third person comes along everyone start swimming in circuits. No one has ever been blocked in all the years I have been lane swimming.

Can everybody on this thread please understand the following etiquette going forward (pools will only ever say circuits due to their risk assessments but it’s not optimum for 1/2 swimmers only in space for 2)…
1 swimmer - up and down
2 swimmers - up and down
3+ swimmers - circuits

You have contradicted your own point.

If the pool is quiet enough to have only two people in a lane
then splitting the lane means you need give no thought to the speed of the other person for the whole of your swim
nobody overtakes anybody

Nobody is 'blocked'
if the pool gets croweded, third person joins the lane and it reverts to round and round

Part of the reason I like side by side is because I need to swim a lot of backstroke due to disability and I hate worrying I will catch up with the person in front of me

Swimming side by side means that you are blocking anyone else from coming in and using the lane, aside from anything else, so it should never be done.
You were in the right OP and it was v odd of her to be in the slow lane anyway from the sounds of it
My biggest bug bear is the person in front of you refusing to let you past at the end of a lane when its obvious you are going quicker than them. Or even worse, chosing to start their lap just as you're about to turn and again, swimming much slower than you are. Convinced people must do it on purpose

I swam side by side with another lady tonight and it worked well. She was swimming back stroke and me crawl, but it worked OK.

i'ts possible but less likely passing once per length than stroke for stroke next to each other all the length (when theres only 2 of you in the lane as in OP situation)

Getting kicked in the face seems a bigger risk if you’re both travelling at the same direction at different speeds

And even if you are both moving at the same speed starting at opposite ends of the pool, you’d be passing each other twice as often as if you’re doing circuits do it doubles the risk.

So I can see why pool management would offer people to do circuits vs side-by-side.

But as a pool user it’s rare to get clipped and it’s more relaxed going side by side so it’s an understandable preference.

Quite!

Of course.

If going round and round you pass them once a length, going in the opposite direction.

If splitting the lane you will meet them every couple of lengths, sometimes going the same way, sometimes going the other way.

In the open part of a pool, length swimmers pick a track, not go round in circles

It makes sense for those swimming laps in the lanes to also pick tracks so that the speed of any swimmer does not impact on others

Aren’t you just as likely to clip someone using the same space in circuits though?

I’m normally at the faster end of slow or slow end of medium. I prefer to be fast end of slow as I find it stressful to feel I am holding people up behind me until we get to the end of a lap. Though I find it frustrating in the slow lane how often slow swimmers don’t give way the end of a lap.

I think you’re right. OP keeps talking about being caught up, no mention of hanging back at the end of the lane.

OP, you don't get it. She came in to your lane because you were the only person in it and therefore she believed she would be able to go up and down on the right of the lane while you went up and down on the left, so the speed you were doing would not have mattered at all. It only matters if you are swimming in circuits.

I am a mid pace (non club) swimmer doing about 25-30 seconds a length. If the middle lane already has 2 or 3 people in but the fast lane or slow lane only 1, I will often move out of the middle lane and ask the faster or slower swimmer if we can swim one side each in the respective lane. Only 1 person has ever said no. Obviously if another swimmer subsequently joins the new lane who is genuinely fast, or genuinely slow, I move back to the middle.

Were you thinking you wouldn't have space because you can't both fit in separate side by side "circuits" within one lane? But if you are side by side you go straight up and down the same line (often I follow the tile lines at the bottom of the pool to keep straight). I really just don't understand how it was a problem to you to just change from up the left, down the right of your lane to up and down the left while faster swimmer went up and down the right. Everyone swims at their own pace; no one is crowded, pressured or frustrated.

Ive mostly been in pools where people adhere to the pool rules on single file clockwise or anticlockwise when lane swimming.
I have encountered people wanting to swim side by side a couple of times,the first time i was scratched by someone breast stroking alongside me with long acrylic nails.the second time the life guard blew the whistle and said single file please and pointed to the instruction board ..

In my experience most people very much do say 'of course' - I have never had anyone say no and I would say it's about 50-50 in terms of whether it's me or the other person who says it first if there's two in a lane. I have never been in a lane with one other person and swam in a circuit.

I deliberately avoided saying this initially @BringBackCatsEyes- but only if you’re one of those swimmers who is actually aware of others. I get the impression (I think I saw somewhere that the op doesn’t stop at ends for faster swimmers) that the op isn’t one of those.

for faster swimmers, single file swimming is quite a ball ache, because the onus is on the faster swimmer to be constantly on guard for catching up with slower swimmers. Switching pace, stroke etc constantly.

Only if they're very much faster, or the lane is too full.
Mostly communication happens between everyone. I am often a slower one in the fast lane and a faster one in the middle lane. If I'm the slower one, I often wait at the end to allow the faster one to get to the wall and bounce off again before I go. That's the pool etiquette. I'd say that actually being the slower one is more problematic as you can't see who's behind you.