Swimwalking in the Swimming Lane

[QuizzlyBear]

This may be really trivial and petty but I'm not sure if I'm being U or whether I've misread the swimming pool etiquette...

Ok, I've taken up swimming in the last few months - not training to swim the channel, just twice a week, 50 lengths at a time, in an effort to get fitter.

I go to DHs golf club (technically also a country club but that makes me - and it - sound far more upper-middle class than we are) after the school run and dog walk in the mornings and it seems to coincide with the same 'swim crowd' each time. They're all a bit 'ladies who lunch' and about 10-20 years older than me.

The thing is, whilst the pool is split into three parts with the floaty dividers, (main pool, a slow lane and a fast lane), there's a few women who eschew the main pool and go in the lanes and WALK?! This must be their regime - they walk up and down the pool for half an hour. Ok, each to their own, but it means you have to swim at the same speed if you're in the lanes, or crash into them repeatedly.

It's giving me Swim Rage (if it's not a thing, it bloody well ought to be) as I finish a length right up their backside, then have to wait until they get halfway down the lane before I set off, then slowly come to halt and repeat. It's crap! There's a whole pool for them to do this in and they walk in the swimming lanes! (Clearly marked).

AIBU? They're very cliquey and entitled so I don't want to ask them not to walk there, as they must know it's annoying for swimmers and remain defiantly unbothered...

Lanes should be for lane swimming. Open sessions for meandering. I'd have big pool rage, too.

My hate is fast men in middle lane

That's because they are not fast enough to be in the fast lane and have to leave. They then take it out on middle lane swimmers who tend to be women who may underestimate themselves or men who recognise their limitations.

I'm fast so deserve to be in the fast lane but small so can be defeated by men who don't belong there but don't like that I swim better than they do. They rock the water as I pass on the other side. It doesn't happen all the time but it's quite obvious when they do this. I've no idea what makes them so angry.

Goodness, this thread is making me twitchy because last year, a woman started doing acquaerobics when I was lane swimming. It was a dedicated and clearly marked lane swimming session. Everyone else was obeying the rules and the leisure pool was open, she could have used that.

The first time, she got out of my way. The second time, she started yelling at me. I am now using a different coloured swimming cap, so she won't recognize me .

@QuizzlyBear It is a constant depth pool but now I've just snorted lemon squash out of my nose at the image of Swim Walkers slowly disappearing under water...

I'm literally laughing out loud my DH jumped out of his skin ha ha ha

And on another note I've never ever heard of or seen a swim walker before?? Totally bizarre.

My pet peeve is men (usually middle aged) who go in the fast lane when they're not fast but instead of letting me past when I lap them try and race me instead.

Can you not just raise your concerns with the lifeguard? I know lifeguards move slow swimmers out of the fast lane so I'm sure they'd move walkers!

@rededucator sadly there's no lifeguard, so I tend to just catch other swimmers eyes and we wince sympathetically at each other.

There's a woman who really seems to wind up the fast lane swimmers - she brings her own flippers and shoots through the water like a greased pig, right up the backside of the person swimming in front...

rededucator the lifeguards in our pool are very young, just out of school and avoid confrontation. A few weeks ago we had pervy middle aged men who weren’t swimming, going underwater with goggles on only when young women were swimming past. It took someone complaining at reception for them to be moved on 🤮

There's a woman who really seems to wind up the fast lane swimmers - she brings her own flippers and shoots through the water like a greased pig, right up the backside of the person swimming in front...
I stand up and block those ones

I swim 2 miles (140 ish lengths) free style in about an hour so fairly fast. I have no issue with people slower than me or even walking in the same lane as long as they can acknowledge I am faster and let me pass them at the wall or move right over to let me overtake them. It's the ones that insist on forcing me to lap them constantly or won't move over that really irritate me. If someone is faster than me I extend the same courtesy to them. It's just manners!

I do think some people are inherently clueless and ignorant about pool etiquette and some are just plain selfish and don't care.

There's your answer
Backstroke

I always find myself doing U turns and half lengths to accommodate the too fast ones

I hate it when they overtake me

And the touching - erghhhh

But I did see a spat between a male and female fast lane couple last week which was exciting !

And yes - how
My heart sinks to enter and see a bloody acqua class in progress

If this is a swimming vent, mine is about the female simmers doing a sedate back stroke up and down. It is really difficult to share a lane with them. One lady shouted at me and explained to the manager that she couldn't share 'her' lane because she couldn't see. Luckily, he made it very clear that anyone was welcome to swim in any lane and perhaps she should not attempt back stroke at busy times (local authority pool).
I still love swimming though

If it is a swimming vent mine was people who go in the medium or fast lanes but go so slow its physically impossible to replicate unless you are a sloth. Or people who swim with both arms right out and hit everyone as they go. Or the young men who come in groups don't swim and takeover the jacuzzi and don't move for an hour.

Sorry that extended to a jacuzzi vent there. Another one is girls that go in pool with perfect hair and make-up bikini-clad then scream when their hair gets wet.

YANBU.

At my old pool I used to go to a weekly session where half of the pool was lane swimming (3 lanes slow/medium/fast) and the other half was for anyone. I used to go with a friend and take her children and we’d stay in the free half of the pool so we could be near her kids but could do a few sneaky lengths. One day this tit of a man kept shouting at us because he came into the free half of the pool to do lane swimming and we were in his way. I pointed out to him that there was already 3 lanes for lane swimming and the half we were in was for anybody (there wasn’t just us in, there were other families and groups of adults/kids all doing their own thing). He didn’t go to the lanes though, he stayed where he was and kept shouting at us to move. He was a pretty competent swimmer too, not somebody struggling. He told the lifeguard on us for swimming in his way and the lifeguard laughed at him and told him to go in the lanes too. He came again the next week and did exactly the same. 🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

Went swimming yesterday and a guy was doing laps entirely underwater in the medium lane. I had to move into the main pool as I was terrified I was going to kick him in the face. Can only assume he was doing some kind of Mission Impossible training.

I swim everyday (I’m not very fast, I just like it), either in the small pool at my gym or a big public pool. I have a theory that chlorinated water renders me invisible to other people, because it doesn’t matter how many others people are in the pool, or what they are doing, whenever someone new comes in they ALWAYS when to swim in the exact place I am.

My personal favourite is the big splashy man whom I now call “Phelpsy”. There are three lanes available to swimmers, but I was in the main pool, not a lane. Phelpsy decided he wanted to swim very fast exactly in the bit I was swimming in, and when he caught me up he put both his hands on my hips and tried to move me to the side. Couldn’t understand why this bothered me.

I've never encountered a Swimming Manspreader. There's a new delight in every pool!
Woman are worse at spreading across the land. 2 this week doing a sort of butterfly on their back down the middle , leaving no room to pass. Also find woman worse at breaststroke, very wide stroke , too far from the rope again difficult to pass.

I go to a similar club (wonder if it's the same one ?) but in the February newsletter there's a specific point made that "swimmers have priority in the lanes".

I never understand why people would walk up and down the lanes. Use the rest of the pool !

There is a woman at our local pool who does 'exercises' (aka gently jumping up and down for half an hour) in the middle of a swimming lane half way down the length. It's really annoying.