Swimming Etiquette

I like swimming. And with the plan to swim Windermere, then that’s the exercise I focus the most on at the moment.

I like being able to lose myself in the process of swimming – although it takes very little mental activity to swim up and down it absorbs me completely and I switch my brain off as I tick off the lengths.

But of course one of the bugbears (as in any area of life) is other people.

Generally people in the pool are great and we all go about our business in tacit acknowledgement of each other, without actually talking (a bit like travelling on the tube). But of course there are always one or two who disrupt that. Here are a few of the most annoying character types that I occasionally see:

Chatterbox: the people who seem to use the pool as a social event and clog up one end by chatting and leave me no room to turn. Just go for a coffee instead!

One-lap racers: now and again you get people who seem to train by sprinting a length or two and then resting for 5 minutes. Fine in itself, but very annoying if you don’t realise and let them overtake you doing this, only to see them stop moments later.

Dawdlers: this is the group of people who swim just a bit slower than you, but then don’t let you past. They are just too quick for you to sprint past (or the lane is too busy), but they are also too oblivious to your presence (or just too ignorant) to let you past.

Of course, I’m sure most of them get annoyed with me too – the plodder that just keeps going up and down, up and down, up and down etc etc

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