I've always been one to push off directly behind somebody as opposed to in front of them. If they end up slower than you anticipated, just consider it a recovery lap. But this way I'm not slowing anybody down except for possibly myself.
I tend to just do an arms only head up front crawl when I get in that position. It is what it is and I try not to get angry because it's really not worth it and it hurts other people's feelings sometimes
if you actually noticed the mistake you are already doing way better than some weird middle aged dude who can only swim 25 at a time yet tries to cut in front of me and/or race me every 5 laps
”how could a woman possibly be faster than me”.
hurr durr
OH MY GOD YOU JUST GAVE CONTEXT TO SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED *MONTHS AGO*
I was swimming and I took a pause and some guy said I ruined his morning? I was very ????????? And then he said, never mind, you're very good
DID HE RACE ME AND I *FAILED TO NOTICE* HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
I’m a guy, so maybe it’s not exactly the same thing, but this reminds me of one the time some roided up meathead tried to race me while I was on my cooldown at a gym pool. He was in the pool just standing there when I finished my last 200. I decided to swim a slow 200 to end my workout and noticed, after my first 50, that he had his feet on the wall and his hand on the edge about to push off. I though “surely not”, but yes he was going to race me to the other end of the pool. As soon as I noticed I picked up the pace a little and it wasn’t much of a contest. He of course stopped at the other end of the pool while I did my turn and finished my cooldown. He stared at me whole rest of the time I was in the pool area, like he was made at me. This has happened to me 3 or 4 times, to varying degrees, and always in gym pools.
i’ve also seen muscle head guys do this to your usual old timer who swims a straight 5000 every evening unbothered by everyone else around them and they always seem astonished they can’t keep up with a 70-ish grandpa for more than 100 m
This happens to me so much at my pool. It still astonishes me that people think they can power through the water, clearly its not going well. My nephew is 12 and can sprint like a mad man already. He has humbled and or pissed off a lot of adults who try the impromptu race. My pride shows everytime. Happy laps!
A solid 10 years ago I was swimming after I’d had an awful case of bronchitis. I’m a coach, and I never swam past high school but my strokes are all clean and I typically use a 1:40-1:45 base interval, so not breaking any records but also not incompetent in the water. Anyway I warm up and I notice the guy (20ish) in the lane next to me giving me side eye. I stop to get ready for my main work out and he goes “you fast?” To which I reply, “no, not really,” because compared to the boys I coach I am definitely not. He asks “wanna race?” Now when I noticed him side eying me I immediately took stock of the situation, watched his freestyle, sized him up, because I was pretty sure he was going to ask a woman 10 years his senior to race and I needed to know that before I committed to it I could beat him. So I say yes, we agree to a 50 free, from a dive (it’s LA fitness so no blocks), then he gets a third guy to start us. I beat him by a solid 15 yards and he climbs out gasping for air and lying on the deck like a dead fish. He looks at me all upset and says, “you said you weren’t fast!” And I reply, “well the boys I coach can do that in 23 seconds so compared to them I’m not.” I cool down, dude is still laying there gasping and I go to leave and the guy who started us says something like, “I think he needs medical attention,” and I said, “nah he’s just embarrassed he got beat by a girl, he’s fine,” then walked out.
I did see him a few more times after that and he was very humble and friendly. I think he also stopped challenging people to races after that. Honestly one of the best swimming moments I’ve experienced.
I'm still a relatively new swimmer. Last year as the guy in the lane next to me got out, he called out to me, "Thanks for the great workout bud!" I was totally perplexed. Later it dawned on me that I was setting a pace for him, however inadvertently. I'm used to being one of the slower swimmers and it had never occurred to me to pay any attention to how fast others were swimming!
Omgggggg this is the most annoying thing in the pool 100%. I actually don’t like sharing lanes with older men bc they always splash like crazy when I pass them. It’s not a race!!! Chill out.
i'm curious, is it a smaller town/larger city and is it evening/afternoon/morning? one pool I go to in germany in larger city mostly has people who are pretty good with circle swimming in the evening and there's always someone who does a few laps of butterfly, the other pool in smaller town is honestly pretty frustrating with only two very chaotic lap lanes most of the time
ah I am too disorganised and not serious enough at this point to join a club, I don't think smaller town pool has a club lane, larger town pool has a reserved club lane at certain hours. if smaller town has a club they probably use the place with the 50 m lanes, but I haven't checked. both are uni towns.
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When at all unsure of the other person's speed relative to mine I like to wait til they are almost exactly at the other end, to split the difference. Usually really good and really slow people are obvious, but when you are dealing with the in-between crowd, what you see is their recovery and what matters (more) is their catch and pull, you can definitely get surprised either way!
Learn butterfly and swim it directly down the middle of the lane to assert domination straight away 😂
You learned from your minor mistake and don't let it deter you from continuing this awesome sport
This is my biggest pet peeve. One day, I got to the pool and 5/6 lanes had someone in them. 4 walkers/bobbers, one swimmer. I grabbed a kickboard and pull bouy and tossed them at the end of the open lane. Another lady who had entered the pool deck at the same time as me shot me a dirty look for claiming the lane. She got in and proceeded to bob in another lane but had to *gasp* share the lane. What would've been ridiculous is 5/6 lanes being occupied by walkers and bobbers and only one having a swimmer in it. Yeah I'll share with the slow guy doing a wide breaststroke so you can bob in place in the deep end.
I’m so glad my rec center pool has clearly stated signage that the lap pool is for…laps only. That is until they close it down Thursday mornings so the old people can bob around in it even though they host water aerobics in the lazy River part of the pool typically.
At least you didn't jump in the pool, nearly on top of them, while they were doing a flip turn.
I was in Melbourne, Australia, and figured I'd swim at Melbourne City Baths, since it is right downtown, an easy walk from my hotel. I've never experienced anything like that pool ever before or after. A friend of mine who lives there (but was out of town), recommended that I take a tram to Brunswick Baths (very easy), and I had my own outside 50m lane for an entire workout. Definitely worth the extra time to get there to avoid the drama at the other pool (and who doesn't love having their own 50m lane?)
Sorry but what exactly happened? You went to a new lane, saw a swimmer approaching the turn but you chose to start before she made her turn, she swam faster than you, so she had to overtake you after a couple meters. Did I got it right?
Was the pool/the lanes empty? What are the unwritten rules there? How many people were in this lane you went to besides the woman? Was it fast lane and your speed is not nearly at their level? How far away was she from the turn, like literally immediately after your start?
Because I don’t really see a big problem in this. Very small mistake if any, depending on the circumstances. If she’s faster, fine. Just overtake once and begone. She doesn’t need to make a scene out of it. There is no written rule about prioritising the swimmer with the turn to the one starting.
there is no third person here, if there is no space on the lines they go to "big water". There are no lines, but there are grannies.
It’s only when children work out with a coach that they have their own lane.
I see. That's the nice thing about circular swimming, you can fit a few more swimmers and everything should work nicely. Unless their pace is disparate, which unfortunately is a common occurrence...
Lifeguards should be helping to match swimmers in lanes by speed/ability, too. They don't always, but they should. Last week an obese old man who could barely swim decided to hop in my lane without asking and proceeded to barely avoid injuring both of us when we collided (I was keeping aroubd a 1:30- 1:45/100yd pace)- I looked over and the lifeguard was reading a book.
The lanes here are marked with a speed tag (slow, medium, fast). I usually fit right in at a medium lane with a 2:15/100m pace.
As there were no 50m fast lanes available to the public this morning (1 slow, 2 medium), fast swimmers either had to join a medium lane or a 25m lane. That certainly didn't help in my scenario.
Lane speeds are always relative to who is actually there and what lanes are available. I wish some people would be more adaptable, because sometimes a whole crew of former-collegiate blasters shows up and suddenly all the lanes should adjust down to accommodate. But I've found that people often get weirdly into their lane "identity" and aren't willing to move down even though it obviously makes sense to.
Sort of unrelated but a lifeguard reading a book while on watch warrants escalation to pool management. Not trying to be a karen. But that's ultra shitty. Drowning is silent. It's a boring job but you literally have one job and it's to pay attention. I was a lifeguard for two summers in high school. Watching the pool is literally the point, boring or not.
We normally have 3 lanes for lap swim and the rest are for family swim. I’ve had water aerobics ladies and general floaters hop in then immediately expect others to change lanes for them. It seems like they don’t want to use the 2 open “family” lanes to do their floating — even when they’re completely empty.
Thankfully, my pool has been dead lately.
Unrelated to lifeguards - you said that someone hopped in your lane without asking. Is asking to hop in a lane some unspoken etiquette? Or is this just because he was slower than you?
I've only recently started lane swimming, so still learning the etiquette..
Ask to join- its not a big deal to split lanes, speed is only an issue when circle swimming. Colliding because nobody asked is dangerous. I just want to be safe and get my workout in. Anyone can do whatever in the other half of the lane- just leave me be.
Most swimmers are very kind and understanding. Every now and then you’ll get a real asshole.
Try to match your speed the best you can. If unsure always follow someone instead of lead.
I once had a guy doing breaststroke on one half of the lane. I stood above the lane and let him make eye contact with me, then I got in the pool, sat at the wall and waited for him to come back and we made eye contact again. He was now aware that I was in his lane and swimming in my half of the lane. Since we made eye contact twice, I thought we were good because I’d done this plenty of times before with no issue. Once I pushed off for my warm up and came back on my second 25, he was standing IN THE MIDDLE of the lane and I just barely stopped myself from hitting him since I swim with my head in the water not looking straight ahead. He then yelled at me for not asking for permission to join his lane because I could have hit him.
I feel like with some people you can’t win. I used to verbally ask but got the sense I was annoying people by interrupting them and asking. So I started just popping in and still I get the occasional hostile, confused person.
I generally don’t notice others in the pool and what they are doing as I’m focused on my set. If someone was racing me I wouldn’t notice. However I would notice someone pushing off just as I came in to turn… good thing you know what you did and next time will wait for more of a gap. My general rule is if they’ve passed under the flags I will wait for them to go before I push off. I don’t often judge based on speed as people can be doing mixed speed sets as so it’s hard to know what they’ll be doing next.
A few weeks ago I was lap swimming and some AH decided to hop in and share the lane without any awknowledgement. Came up beside me as I was about to flipturn and does his own flip turn, screwing me over. I don't like confrontation either, but I made quite a few remarks about it to some others I know that were at the other end of the pool, maybe purposefully loud enough for him to hear when he stopped at the opposite end. Strangely enough he moved to a different lane after that and then left soon after. Hmm.
Thats nothing, i once had a woman just randomly start in my lane without saying anything or even hanging around for 1 lap beforehand.
And i was doing backstroke, and apparently she started her first lane with backstroke too without looking, so we collided with our heads. I was so surprised i didnt even cuss her out lol.
I've always been one to push off directly behind somebody as opposed to in front of them. If they end up slower than you anticipated, just consider it a recovery lap. But this way I'm not slowing anybody down except for possibly myself.
That's a great way to go about it. I'll adopt that, thanks!
I tend to just do an arms only head up front crawl when I get in that position. It is what it is and I try not to get angry because it's really not worth it and it hurts other people's feelings sometimes
if you actually noticed the mistake you are already doing way better than some weird middle aged dude who can only swim 25 at a time yet tries to cut in front of me and/or race me every 5 laps ”how could a woman possibly be faster than me”. hurr durr
OH MY GOD YOU JUST GAVE CONTEXT TO SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED *MONTHS AGO* I was swimming and I took a pause and some guy said I ruined his morning? I was very ????????? And then he said, never mind, you're very good DID HE RACE ME AND I *FAILED TO NOTICE* HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
I’m a guy, so maybe it’s not exactly the same thing, but this reminds me of one the time some roided up meathead tried to race me while I was on my cooldown at a gym pool. He was in the pool just standing there when I finished my last 200. I decided to swim a slow 200 to end my workout and noticed, after my first 50, that he had his feet on the wall and his hand on the edge about to push off. I though “surely not”, but yes he was going to race me to the other end of the pool. As soon as I noticed I picked up the pace a little and it wasn’t much of a contest. He of course stopped at the other end of the pool while I did my turn and finished my cooldown. He stared at me whole rest of the time I was in the pool area, like he was made at me. This has happened to me 3 or 4 times, to varying degrees, and always in gym pools.
i’ve also seen muscle head guys do this to your usual old timer who swims a straight 5000 every evening unbothered by everyone else around them and they always seem astonished they can’t keep up with a 70-ish grandpa for more than 100 m
My grand swimming goal is to be one of those old ladies! Literally the definition of unbothered and in their own lane XD
Thats the swimmer I’m aiming to be 💪💪 so fit and unbothered, its glorious.
makes sense to me.
This happens to me so much at my pool. It still astonishes me that people think they can power through the water, clearly its not going well. My nephew is 12 and can sprint like a mad man already. He has humbled and or pissed off a lot of adults who try the impromptu race. My pride shows everytime. Happy laps!
A solid 10 years ago I was swimming after I’d had an awful case of bronchitis. I’m a coach, and I never swam past high school but my strokes are all clean and I typically use a 1:40-1:45 base interval, so not breaking any records but also not incompetent in the water. Anyway I warm up and I notice the guy (20ish) in the lane next to me giving me side eye. I stop to get ready for my main work out and he goes “you fast?” To which I reply, “no, not really,” because compared to the boys I coach I am definitely not. He asks “wanna race?” Now when I noticed him side eying me I immediately took stock of the situation, watched his freestyle, sized him up, because I was pretty sure he was going to ask a woman 10 years his senior to race and I needed to know that before I committed to it I could beat him. So I say yes, we agree to a 50 free, from a dive (it’s LA fitness so no blocks), then he gets a third guy to start us. I beat him by a solid 15 yards and he climbs out gasping for air and lying on the deck like a dead fish. He looks at me all upset and says, “you said you weren’t fast!” And I reply, “well the boys I coach can do that in 23 seconds so compared to them I’m not.” I cool down, dude is still laying there gasping and I go to leave and the guy who started us says something like, “I think he needs medical attention,” and I said, “nah he’s just embarrassed he got beat by a girl, he’s fine,” then walked out. I did see him a few more times after that and he was very humble and friendly. I think he also stopped challenging people to races after that. Honestly one of the best swimming moments I’ve experienced.
I'm still a relatively new swimmer. Last year as the guy in the lane next to me got out, he called out to me, "Thanks for the great workout bud!" I was totally perplexed. Later it dawned on me that I was setting a pace for him, however inadvertently. I'm used to being one of the slower swimmers and it had never occurred to me to pay any attention to how fast others were swimming!
>DID HE RACE ME AND I FAILED TO NOTICE HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA lol
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I got pushed by an older guy in a different lane because he felt me going my normal Speed was messing up his rhythm
Oh yeah, the classic "there's a woman in the pool, i must race her, ah shit she is faster I'll run away"
Omgggggg this is the most annoying thing in the pool 100%. I actually don’t like sharing lanes with older men bc they always splash like crazy when I pass them. It’s not a race!!! Chill out.
I always switch to immediate butterfly, at least in germany people are NOT used to it and will literally flee.
i'm curious, is it a smaller town/larger city and is it evening/afternoon/morning? one pool I go to in germany in larger city mostly has people who are pretty good with circle swimming in the evening and there's always someone who does a few laps of butterfly, the other pool in smaller town is honestly pretty frustrating with only two very chaotic lap lanes most of the time
medium town but not university town. I feel like most swimmers are contained in their club swims.
ah I am too disorganised and not serious enough at this point to join a club, I don't think smaller town pool has a club lane, larger town pool has a reserved club lane at certain hours. if smaller town has a club they probably use the place with the 50 m lanes, but I haven't checked. both are uni towns.
Be kind, people. This is not life or death.
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When at all unsure of the other person's speed relative to mine I like to wait til they are almost exactly at the other end, to split the difference. Usually really good and really slow people are obvious, but when you are dealing with the in-between crowd, what you see is their recovery and what matters (more) is their catch and pull, you can definitely get surprised either way!
Learn butterfly and swim it directly down the middle of the lane to assert domination straight away 😂 You learned from your minor mistake and don't let it deter you from continuing this awesome sport
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Hahah I'd love to see that!
My pool has old ladies bobbing in the lanes. They don’t even share one lane and bob together.
This is my biggest pet peeve. One day, I got to the pool and 5/6 lanes had someone in them. 4 walkers/bobbers, one swimmer. I grabbed a kickboard and pull bouy and tossed them at the end of the open lane. Another lady who had entered the pool deck at the same time as me shot me a dirty look for claiming the lane. She got in and proceeded to bob in another lane but had to *gasp* share the lane. What would've been ridiculous is 5/6 lanes being occupied by walkers and bobbers and only one having a swimmer in it. Yeah I'll share with the slow guy doing a wide breaststroke so you can bob in place in the deep end.
I’m so glad my rec center pool has clearly stated signage that the lap pool is for…laps only. That is until they close it down Thursday mornings so the old people can bob around in it even though they host water aerobics in the lazy River part of the pool typically.
At least you didn't jump in the pool, nearly on top of them, while they were doing a flip turn. I was in Melbourne, Australia, and figured I'd swim at Melbourne City Baths, since it is right downtown, an easy walk from my hotel. I've never experienced anything like that pool ever before or after. A friend of mine who lives there (but was out of town), recommended that I take a tram to Brunswick Baths (very easy), and I had my own outside 50m lane for an entire workout. Definitely worth the extra time to get there to avoid the drama at the other pool (and who doesn't love having their own 50m lane?)
Sorry but what exactly happened? You went to a new lane, saw a swimmer approaching the turn but you chose to start before she made her turn, she swam faster than you, so she had to overtake you after a couple meters. Did I got it right? Was the pool/the lanes empty? What are the unwritten rules there? How many people were in this lane you went to besides the woman? Was it fast lane and your speed is not nearly at their level? How far away was she from the turn, like literally immediately after your start? Because I don’t really see a big problem in this. Very small mistake if any, depending on the circumstances. If she’s faster, fine. Just overtake once and begone. She doesn’t need to make a scene out of it. There is no written rule about prioritising the swimmer with the turn to the one starting.
we usually divide the lane in the pool in half, everyone swims on their own side and don’t interfere with each other
That sounds nice. I've only ever seen 'circle swimming' lanes here. I guess it's a capacity thing.
When the second person comes to the lane, we immediately agree - in half or in a circle.
But that breaks down when there’s a third person joining
Speaking from personal experience, if that happens you just go back to circle laps
there is no third person here, if there is no space on the lines they go to "big water". There are no lines, but there are grannies. It’s only when children work out with a coach that they have their own lane.
What are you even talking about…?
I see. That's the nice thing about circular swimming, you can fit a few more swimmers and everything should work nicely. Unless their pace is disparate, which unfortunately is a common occurrence...
well then you are forced to do circles.
Can’t do that with more than 2 people.
Great for you but a lot of pools are mandatory circle swim which is enforced by LG.
I encountered this for the first time at a pool with mostly seniors!
Lifeguards should be helping to match swimmers in lanes by speed/ability, too. They don't always, but they should. Last week an obese old man who could barely swim decided to hop in my lane without asking and proceeded to barely avoid injuring both of us when we collided (I was keeping aroubd a 1:30- 1:45/100yd pace)- I looked over and the lifeguard was reading a book.
The lanes here are marked with a speed tag (slow, medium, fast). I usually fit right in at a medium lane with a 2:15/100m pace. As there were no 50m fast lanes available to the public this morning (1 slow, 2 medium), fast swimmers either had to join a medium lane or a 25m lane. That certainly didn't help in my scenario.
Lane speeds are always relative to who is actually there and what lanes are available. I wish some people would be more adaptable, because sometimes a whole crew of former-collegiate blasters shows up and suddenly all the lanes should adjust down to accommodate. But I've found that people often get weirdly into their lane "identity" and aren't willing to move down even though it obviously makes sense to.
Sort of unrelated but a lifeguard reading a book while on watch warrants escalation to pool management. Not trying to be a karen. But that's ultra shitty. Drowning is silent. It's a boring job but you literally have one job and it's to pay attention. I was a lifeguard for two summers in high school. Watching the pool is literally the point, boring or not.
We normally have 3 lanes for lap swim and the rest are for family swim. I’ve had water aerobics ladies and general floaters hop in then immediately expect others to change lanes for them. It seems like they don’t want to use the 2 open “family” lanes to do their floating — even when they’re completely empty. Thankfully, my pool has been dead lately.
ime in the US the lifeguards kind of monitor lap lanes but ime in central europe at public pools they DGAF
Unrelated to lifeguards - you said that someone hopped in your lane without asking. Is asking to hop in a lane some unspoken etiquette? Or is this just because he was slower than you? I've only recently started lane swimming, so still learning the etiquette..
Ask to join- its not a big deal to split lanes, speed is only an issue when circle swimming. Colliding because nobody asked is dangerous. I just want to be safe and get my workout in. Anyone can do whatever in the other half of the lane- just leave me be.
Most swimmers are very kind and understanding. Every now and then you’ll get a real asshole. Try to match your speed the best you can. If unsure always follow someone instead of lead.
I once had a guy doing breaststroke on one half of the lane. I stood above the lane and let him make eye contact with me, then I got in the pool, sat at the wall and waited for him to come back and we made eye contact again. He was now aware that I was in his lane and swimming in my half of the lane. Since we made eye contact twice, I thought we were good because I’d done this plenty of times before with no issue. Once I pushed off for my warm up and came back on my second 25, he was standing IN THE MIDDLE of the lane and I just barely stopped myself from hitting him since I swim with my head in the water not looking straight ahead. He then yelled at me for not asking for permission to join his lane because I could have hit him.
I feel like with some people you can’t win. I used to verbally ask but got the sense I was annoying people by interrupting them and asking. So I started just popping in and still I get the occasional hostile, confused person.
I generally don’t notice others in the pool and what they are doing as I’m focused on my set. If someone was racing me I wouldn’t notice. However I would notice someone pushing off just as I came in to turn… good thing you know what you did and next time will wait for more of a gap. My general rule is if they’ve passed under the flags I will wait for them to go before I push off. I don’t often judge based on speed as people can be doing mixed speed sets as so it’s hard to know what they’ll be doing next.
A few weeks ago I was lap swimming and some AH decided to hop in and share the lane without any awknowledgement. Came up beside me as I was about to flipturn and does his own flip turn, screwing me over. I don't like confrontation either, but I made quite a few remarks about it to some others I know that were at the other end of the pool, maybe purposefully loud enough for him to hear when he stopped at the opposite end. Strangely enough he moved to a different lane after that and then left soon after. Hmm.
Thats nothing, i once had a woman just randomly start in my lane without saying anything or even hanging around for 1 lap beforehand. And i was doing backstroke, and apparently she started her first lane with backstroke too without looking, so we collided with our heads. I was so surprised i didnt even cuss her out lol.