At the local Y the other day doing a workout, steady as she goes.
A HS girl swimmer jumps in my lane and starts doing 25's.
OK cool.
I push off for my set as she is hanging around listening to her mom tell her that her coach doesn't know anything.
Then 20 metres down the lane she passes me on my right side(she's against the wall).
She stops at the end as I flip turn
I see her later at one end and she tells me I have terrible flip turns and almost hit her.
I look at her like I don't understand English.
Later on her, know it all, mom is sitting on the lane marker(making it sag about 2 feet,if you know what I mean) trying to teach her how to do flip turns.
The lifeguard comes along scolds the mom for sitting on the lane marker and tells them the time slot is for lap/lane swimming not for practicing flip turns.
I just happen to be going by doing my kick set and smiled at them both.
Sent my praise to the Y manager for the lifeguards.

I had a couple good ones recently. Public pool, nice facility and open lap swim in the am. In a lane next to me on the deep side of a split 50m, was what I'll call "Beetle Juice Lady". It was early morning sun not even hitting the pool yet, but this person had pure white face mask cream (sun screen?) completely covering her from the neck up, on top was a clear shower cap and the creepiest part was the dark eyeliner ala Beetle Juice around her eyes. Arm floaties and headset complete the set up. I thought it was pretty early for Aqua Halloween. Anyway, she spent a good half an hour or more water walking or something upright. Headphones on. It was bizarre, but couldn't take my eyes off as a pounded out laps.

Then today in the shallow end 25m, we had "Larry The Cable Guy" and his lady friend. Larry was a BIG boy and wore camo cargo shorts, you know 100% cotton is such a water dynamic fabric. On top he had a matching camo cap complete with some kind of medals pinned to it. "Larry" and his mate decided doing their water walking was just not going to happen in another lane next to me that already had a walker. I guess three water walkers in one lane is too much density. No, Larry needed to move over in to my lane which I had enjoyed for a couple thousand yards solo doing a workout, sets etc. pulling, sprinting, the usual semi serious swim stuff. Now, they are in my lane, both of them, wading along BACKWARDS jabbering at each other. I wiggled around them a few laps and each time I sensed they thought I was in THEIR way. Finally, I get to the end of a lap, they are coming toward me backwards sort of in the middle of the lane. I suggested we split. This was not well comprehended by Larry. He smiled and said they would. Well, he interpreted that to mean they EACH take one side, forcing me to swim between them. After a few more attempts to do this, totally screwing up my workout, I saw that the lane next to me opened up. I tried to keep an eye on the lifeguard hoping they might intervene. No such luck.

It's the Y. Everything weird in the water happens at the Y.

ROTC guys couldn't believe that I had the audacity to ask to share the only open lane when the remainder of the pool was occupied by young kids' swim lessons. Those ROTC guys were literally doing nothing other than treading water and could have been in the deep end where the kids' lessons were not taking place.

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Proud Representative of Slowtwitch Anti-Atheists Society.

Ben - Two observations: 1) Why weren't you swimming with the masters group anyway??? 2) I think you should have taken it as a compliment that they wanted to circle with you. I think I'd have said sure, let's circle. I'm always up for circling, but maybe that is b/c i only ever have the opportunity maybe 5-6 times/yr. I always swim faster when circling:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Unfortunately, people probably refer to me as "How many heartbeats can I generate in 30 mins guy." I appear in the lane, suck a lot of air, climb out, and certainly do not talk to anyone!

I love that my Y closes the indoor pool when there's thunder outside. Worse, it's a state law.

I'm here to confess that a family member of mine is a Strange Denizen of the Pool: my father chews gum while he swims. He informed me of this today. That has to be a new one, right?

Nah, chewing gum while swimming is not new at all, rare but not new. I've seen it off and on across the years. Right now I see this one girl in the pool about once a week, and she is chomping down on her gum. However, she is pretty hot so i won't hold the gum against her, since she is hot and swims well. OTOH, there is other girl who is pretty hot also, doesn't chew gum at all, but she insists on kicking on her back with a freaking noodle looped around her neck!!! She just looks so unbearably retarded with that stupid noodle, plus her voice just grates on my nerves, so despite her hotness i have never ever asked her out. Using the noodle is the sign of a retard and is a complete deal-breaker IMO:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I had a pair of speedo endurance split down the ass crack and I didn't even realize it until the lifeguard came over and told me. I asked him if I could finish my workout and he said ok;)

Now this guy, rather than your gum-chewing Dad:), I would call a truly new species. Someone else may correct me if i'm wrong, but I've never seen a person able to do a great streamline yet unable to actually swim at all. This is a very odd combo of talents/non-talents:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I asked about this when I was in Colorado last year and saw similar signage for an indoor pool. Thunder means possible lightening. If the bedrock has granite, the granite could transmit a lightening strike for miles which would create a hazard in the pool. Or so I was told…

Lightning can be carried by pipes. BUT, it will not reach you in a pool, unless you are physically touching a metal drain. Maybe you could be doing this, but then why do they not close down the showers and the bathrooms, because you could be touching the faucets during that then a drain during a swim.

My friend who is a lifeguard said six guys showed up at the pool yesterday swimming much faster than everybody else, rocketing 50s off the wall in 23 seconds. It turns out they were the Australia ITU team.

What pool, where??? Near/in Chicago??? In any case, 23s off the wall are extremely impressive. This must have been a 25-yd pool right???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Northwestern, it's a 25 yard pool. There were also a lot more tri bikes on Green Bay Road this past weekend.

Ah, university pool; the Aussies should ask to do a few workouts with the NU team. It seems like one of our current pro triathletes who posts on here swam for NU but i can't recall who.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

They swam from Ohio Street Beach today. Very impressive to watch.

I'll bet!!! Cool!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Do you live in Indiana because that law seems so familiar.

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Disco
South Bend, IN

Habitual Line Stepper..

My first strange denizen today but was actually somewhat impressive. For some of his laps, he was doing regular breaststroke and looked average, at least looked like he knew what he was doing. Then I looked again and did a triple take and had to watch for a lap or two. Same thing, breaststroke....... but on his back. Brackstroke? Same exact motion with the arms and legs but staring at the ceiling. So, when your head would normally pop up above the surface, this guy's would go under. I was actually impressed after a lap to see him continuing this and not having water jet up his nose as his propulsion slowed during recovery. Definitely don't think I'll be seeing that repeated.

Two of our local club members make up half of the Australian Junior Male team. They've been training at South Bend Indiana.



We're a regional club in Queensland with less than 100 members so we're very proud of Christian Wilson (centre) and Matt Hauser (right). Christian's a dual National Schools champion and Matt's a 4 time National Schools champion and is a huge chance for a medal, if not gold. Can't wait for Thursday.

There's a guy who i have seen a lot over the past few weeks in the pool and I am call him "Half Length Harry". It's a 50m pool, but walks down the lane about 15m where it's too deep to walk and then he starts to swim. On the way back he until swims to where he can stand up and then starts to walk.

He was practicing his ingress/egress in shallow water.

A couple weeks back, our pool was shut down for 3 days to recover from a "code brown".

One of the oldsters in the Sunday morning aqua aerobics class let loose with an Exxon Valdeze class "spill".

I'll give the Y credit. They pulled out all the stops to clean up that mess.

Korean gentleman. Slathered up with sunscreen. Wearing a surf shirt and speedos, goggles and snorkel. Jumps in and then puts what looks like a full face dark tinted welding mask on the back of his head and proceeds to swim a lap. Gets to the other end spends about 30 seconds readjusting the welding mask on the back of his head, clearing the snorkel and swims another lap and repeats process. Guy looked like darth vader swimming. I guess he didn't want any sun on the back of his head and neck.