An exercise in floating

I’ve not been for a swim in aaaaaggggeees (actually it was Friday with Sally) and I’m starting to panic about 2swim4life. So while I couldn’t make the early morning session today I thought I’d use the 10-11am lane swimming session to just get wet again.

The plan was to do 400m of drills, followed by a gentle mile. Hopefully all done and dusted within about 45 minutes and back to work.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

It turns out that the session only had two lanes set up (slow and medium) – normally it’s four, but those two lanes were full. There wasn’t much chance of a gentle swim as I would always be swimming behind someone, so I thought I’d just do drills – not the same distance, but a good session anyway.

I do my drills in the slow lane as they are very slow. Or at least I thought they were until I set off today. Even my slow, one-armed drills were faster (and I mean a lot faster) than some of the swimmers today. I actually spent most of the time trying not to move forward. Grrrr.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising the swimmers. They were polite and friendly and more importantly they were using and enjoying the facilities. My annoyance is with the leisure centre that didn’t advertise it was only a two-lane session. If they had I wouldn’t have gone. I certainly won’t go again at that time.

Then to top it off, on the drive to the office I had a couple of drivers in front of me who were exactly the same – you know, 40mph in a 60 mph zone.

And breathe….

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Good day, bad day

It’s only 9:30am and I’m already able to write a headline like that – perhaps that alone tells you all you need to know. Anyway…

– Good day – I got up and went straight out for a swim this morning and did 1.5 miles. It’s starting to come back and I’m enjoying it all again. I’m still not concerning myself too much with my speed, more about getting the miles back into my shoulders and practising my breathing.

– Bad day – When I got home I “nudged” the garage door with the car! To park my car I need to approach the drive at an angle, take the car as close to the garage door as possible and then straighten up. This morning I got closer to the garage door than was possible. Of course I managed to knock the door rollers out of their track and the door settled into a strange angle. I’ve managed to cobble a fix together and if you all promise not to tell my wife I might just get away with it.

Let’s hope the rest of the day is on the good side, or at least remains uneventful.

Another Etiquette Post

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve not written much about swimming for a while, so I thought it was about time. In the run up to the Windermere swim I didn’t do too much pool swimming – it was too warm to train in and I just couldn’t get the distance up like I needed to. However, I’ve been back in the pool a couple of times since and I’m reminded why I don’t like it – mainly all the other swimmers!

I’ve written about etiquette in the pool before, but I think there are a few other annoyances I need to point out – I’m hoping that this will be the third and final post of the etiquette trilogy – however I reserve the right to do a George Lucas and randomly add three more at a later date. Anyway, the current crop of annoying pool users are:

Danglers – you know, the people who before getting into a lane to swim sit on the edge dangling their feet into the water. It’s hard to state just how off-putting this can be if you’re trying to turn in the lane. In fact the danglers probably take up more of the turning space by dangling than if they had jumped in and were standing in the water.

Half-lap turners – this is the group of people that feel the need to turn before the end of the lane. This is usually done as a way to get around other swimmers. However what it does do is usually mean that they just get in the way and break up the rhythm of everyone else. I could understand it if they have been following a dawdler for a while, but it usually done at the first available opportunity and just shows an arrogance and disregard for the other swimmers.

So, if you’re lane swimming please don’t commit any of these “crimes” (or these or these). Thanks.