If the lane is empty sometimes I go clockwise. Many go in the next lane, good swimmers are not fooled ...

---

___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

SCY?

Right.

Right?

---

_____________________________________
What are you people, on dope?

—Mr. Hand

I was at a swim meet last year where they did that in every other lane. I suppose it was so people wouldn't hook arms in adjacent lanes.

I avoided those lanes since I had never really done that before then tried it at my home pool, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Another reason I like that format, some folks are hardwired to stay right and they have difficulty with change.

---

___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

I have been living in Germany for the past few years and it took me a long time to accept that swimming in Germany is always chaotic in some way, and more or less every session results in body contact of some sort.

After trying lots of different pools, different days and times, I split my swim sessions between 2 different pools; a 50m and a 25m, both are chaotic in their own special way.

The 50m pool between 7-8am usually has 10-12 people per lane, in the evening it can be 20+, which wouldn't be so bad if there was any ranking of the lanes, but there isn’t. People just get in which ever lane takes their fancy and no one controls anything, so there’s always a mismatch of abilities in every lane and some inevitable body contact.

This morning was a really good day - I only shared a 50m lane with 6-7 others, and my lane-mates were reasonably considerate - my lane-mates included a women swimming 2:00 – 2:10/ 100m, a man who alternated crawl / breast / back every length, 2 guys swimming together at I guess sub 1:20/100m, and a man swimming 2:30/100ms. More or less every length I needed to overtake or was overtaken by 2 people 10cm apart.

The 25m pool I use, like most pools in Germany don’t have any lanes marked, so people have to carve out their own virtual lane about 50cm wide to swim up and down, which works well ok until you get more than 20 people in the swimming pool or a group of old ladies breast stroking and chatting 5 abreast.

New low at my pool today: 3 of 6 lanes are completely empty and the person joining starts splitting my lane without even asking. I stopped and pointed out the empty lanes.

Sounds like you should have shared instead of being a dickweasle.

I have no objection to sharing if it's busy, but if it's not then I don't see why it's necessary. I even managed to make my point without calling anyone names.

Get in the lane and start swimming fly, you will have the lane to yourself in no time.

This is a triathlete who never swam competitively mentality. My son swims and I watched 100+ kids on his team warm up in 5 lanes with out issue several times this weekend and they were swimming all strokes.

---

ishi no ue ni san nen | Perseverance will win in the end. | Blog | @nebmot | Strava | Instagram |

I am bringing just for two distinct instances this weekend. I was in the lap pool with the pool to myself and I had my kids come over to swim some laps (8 and 10), I asked the guard if they would prefer the kids share a lane or have their own (still empty pool) guard said its dead give them their own. Well we were swimming about 15 minutes and enough people showed up to each have their own lane, now come two distinct attitudes that I believe are polar opposites. My son was swimming his laps when an older guy (around 70) tapped him and asked if he could share (extremely politely), my son had the response I hoped he would and said, you can have the lane, I will share with my sister.

Now I had the opposite situation, I was swimming laps, and I naturally circle swim when I swim laps (not by choice, I just pull to the right so it works well for circle swim). I was swimming and suddenly hit someone else in the lane on the same side. At the end of the pool I said, hey sorry, I didn't know anyone else was in the pool and I was circle swimming. Her response was well I only split lanes and this is my side, now get out of my way. I was fine with splitting the lane, but at least tell the person in the lane you are joining, especially if you are changing how they need to swim their laps.

Sounds like the older guy was way too cool to be a swimmer. Must have been a runner doing some cross training.

Last Friday, I was sharing a lane with 4 people because the swim team had 5 of the 6 lanes and there was only one adult lap lane. Somehow, I was the fastest and I was trying to do tempo/fast 100's and 200's. I was constantly dodging the others.

I was 200 into a hard 300 when one woman seemed to be dancing at the wall so there was nowhere for me to go and I ran right into her as I made my turn. Certainly not optimal but I paused and then went on my way. The woman and I saw each other on the way to the lockers and she apologized. I told her I had many more things to worry about in the pool than her. She looked at me like I was Mother Teresa and told me I have a great attitude.

Sharing a lane...it's not that complicated, even for intellectually-deficient swimmers (that's all of you, by the way).