Pool swimmers: how much and how often?

[Firesidefox]

Posting here for traffic.

I've started swimming in my local pool as I had to give up running, and I'm interested to know how much others do.

(I get that this is a 'piece of string' type question, but never mind).

For those who regularly swim in a pool for exercise, how much do you do? Eg time/distance.

And how often do you go?

I'm mid-40s and after a slow start I've got up to swimming 1km twice a week. I also go on my Wattbike a couple of times a week.

(This is the ideal - last week I had a cold and felt shattered so did nothing).

Please tell me what you do as I have no swimming friends so no one to compare myself to, and I can't find any swimming forums either - when I ran I used to go to Runner's World for info.

Thanks

You make me laugh with the men being dicks @UnconditionalSurrender !!

You just see them coming and you know they're going to get in and try to overtake you. Makes me want to get faster so I can out race a few of them.

There's a woman in my pool, older than me, maybe early/mid 50s, and she's so fast, it's awesome. She just gets into the fast lane, and IS fast, and I love watching the younger men clock her in awe!

We've all been there ...

I can't tell people in real life but one of my greatest achievements is overtaking a man (who shouldn't have been in the fast lane) doing front crawl when I was 8 months pregnant. The look on his face when I got out

Yeah, what is it with idiot blokes like that…I guess it’s the same with running or the gym and I’m only aware of it in the pool because I’m slooooow in dry land, but there are so many men who seem to take it as a personal slight if a woman is swimming faster than them

I need a vigilante in my pool too

I love swimming. I go every morning 7 days a week and swim for an hour which for me is a little more than 2 km. I am a bit exercise obsessed so also go to the gym daily.

Urgh, I am so slow! I swim three times a week. Sometimes I do 45 mins of aqua before 20 mins of swimming, sometimes I just do 40 mins of swimming. I swim for 40 minutes because that's roughly how long it takes me to do 1km. I'm usually just under a minute per 25m length. However, I absolutely cannot do front crawl due to ankle instability issues so I'm stuck bobbing along like a frog doing breaststroke. I try hard though!

Men arrive at the pool and having not swum more than the length of themselves since school suddenly think, as they can lift a few weights, they should be able to swim faster and longer than someone who's in there everyday. The damage to their ego when you lap them just results in shitty behaviour. It's so fucking predictable.

My pool now allows overtaking mid-lane again (if it’s safe to do so, having stopped it during Covid) and there’s nothing so satisfying as gliding past the overly splashy, puffing bloke who should not be in the fast lane & whose ego won’t permit him to stop at the end to allow the faster woman to pass…

I’ve wanted to make these two blog posts compulsory reading/study for pool swimmers before they’re allowed in a lane session…

loneswimmer.com/2011/02/15/lane-swimming-etiquette/

And (written by a man about a woman but ime far more likely to be needed by women swimmers!)

loneswimmer.com/2015/10/06/i-touched-your-foot/amp/