My pool, my rules

[MulhuddartDrive]

I love swimming but when I go to lane swims it reminds me why I don't go more often... When I run the world leisure centre, my rules will be:

1. pick the right fucking lane for your speed. I know I'm a medium plodder so I stay with the medium plodders. If you're in training to be Michael Phelps, please go join the fast lane.
2. if you're taking a breather don't wander around taking up the entire end of the lane so I can't pick a point to turn.
3. or spend 5 minutes chatting to your honey, so the two of you are cluttering up the end of the lane.
4. also breather related, don't half sit under the water looking like you're about to push off if you're not going to.
5. please acknowledge in some way the person trying to work out if you're going to push off. If you choose not to, stay put so they don't crash into you.
6. after lolling about for the second half of my length, then actually acknowledging me passing you, don't immediately start swimming after me so you're all but tipping my heels the whole way. A couple of stroke lengths is courteous.

It would appear my lane issues are all turning related - who'da thunk it? What are your swimming bug bears, so I can have more arguments and compose snotty posts in my head while I'm plodding up and down the pool in the medium lane

Do not use the only public swim lane available on a Sat morning to do 50m butterfly sets down the middle just because you are ex-club swimmer - especially when there are 3 other people all doing steady frontcrawl. I feel your pain Mr Ex-club just go to the flipping masters session to be with your people or the quiet evening session with 3 lanes..not the Saturday family session....

Love the cherry picker for walkers idea made me laugh out loud after my experience last week of the bemused woman who thought swimming a third of the lane stopping standing then swimming back to the wall again was a good use of the pool (head out almost vertical breaststroke) despite being accidentally hit twice by two different crawl swimmers and one nicely talking to her she carried on... err lifeguards plse? I moved lanes...

I have a progressive neurological condition.
My consultant says the best thing for my legs would be to walk in the pool.
There is nowhere I can go to do this.
There is one pool for people with disabilities near me. I cant use that until I get a lot worse.
I cant get into my local pool because the adult only swims are so limited and people dont like walkers.
I cant drive or manage to walk far.
So I stay at home and my muscles waste away.

Have a wash before you get in (obviously this requires that swimming pools build showers and single sex changing rooms!)

Yes to showering before getting in. I have swam behind too many men who have clearly covered themselves in aftershave before leaving the house.

Just because there are more people in the fast lane than you would like doesn’t mean you can get in the slow lane and weave around people while creating massive tidal waves as you show off your prowess to the less worthy. This really annoys me.

Can I add that if there are no lane ropes and everyone is swimming in one direction, you do not and I repeat, do not swim across them because you prefer to swim widths rather than lengths.

I left our gym because of this and the fact the pool had a polite notice about over crowding and a specific figure of how many swimmers at one time. You would have to stand by the pool and wait for someone to get out and the rules were if you had been in for 30 minutes you yielded your lane to the next person. You would stand there waiting and waiting and several times I would just give up

end have you looked at hotel based pools? I go to one where there is a marked lane, two accepted unmarked lanes next to it and then the other side of the pool is accepted as the messing about zone where you can can walk, float, play with DC, etc.

Yes. But I cant afford it.
£80 per month membership for off peak in all the hotels and clubs I have tried. I cant go alone so DH would have to pay membership too.
I had to give up work 5 years early due to my condition. My pension is tiny. I have looked into everything I can think of. No joy.

Pools just aren't big enough to accommodate all the people who want to do with things in the water, I'd like to get back into swimming but it's just so difficult to get a good workout because you have to work around other people.
Also got much more squeamish as I've got older I feel like I'm in the bath with a load of strangers
too intimate😶

End I'm shocked by that price! Round here it's £27-30 in most hotels (and the council one is £25) so very little difference in price and better value at the hotel since you can swim anytime. Most also allow a carer in with a disabled person here too. Shocking how much it varies by area.

Have you tried talking to GP about accessing therapy pools? Or physio with therapy pool? Lots of areas have them.

I am not disabled enough yet.
Probably will be in a couple of years.
I could probably delay that by exercising in water, but cant afford it/access it atm.
It is frustrating.
My neurologist says there are other drugs/treatments I could try but I have to get worse before I can have them.
Sigh.

Anyway. I shouldn't derail the thread.

I just have one rule.

If you are in my lane, and swimming slightly slower than me, don't stop for a rest and then push off just ahead of me so that I have to spend the next length trying not to crash into you.

There. Its not difficult, is it?

beela YES!

My rules:

1. Fast lane is for freestyle only.

1. Have a bit of consideration/awareness of what's going on around you and DON'T push off just as someone who is clearly faster than you is approaching to turn.

I lived in Australia for a bit and people there are on the whole much more adept swimmers than in the UK, but they're also much more considerate too.

I find 50m pools are better cos you have more space to 'lose' people who are getting in your way, but they are obviously not plentiful in this country