Ran into the String Bikini "Yummy Mummy" in the pool a few weeks ago.

She dove into the lane next to mine as I was approaching with predictable results: the string bikini slipped down and the store bought boobs popped out. As this happened about 24 inches away from my face, I inhaled swallowing a gallon of water. This in turn made me jump upright spluttering, just as she was repairing the wardrobe malfunction, giving me a second look, which resulted in me shooting the gallon of water I ingested out through my nose. Judging by the big smile on her face she enjoyed my reaction.

Turns out her kids go to the same school as mine, so she's been very friendly since then...

So I never thought I would have anything to add to this thread, as I thought it was all here already but today brought the jackpot!

First was the woman who came in, she looked to be in her 60s, thin, flower swim suit, came in and sat on one of the plastic chairs and closed her eyes (there was a lane open). She was there for a good third of my workout. Then she moved over to the lane next to mine, sat on the deck, legs pulled up, eyes closed - cap was now on. Not sure if she was communing with the water, or trying to get strength from some sort of water g-d. When she finally got in she swam rather slowly, deliberately, but did do flip turns (my open turns were faster - actually my open turns were faster than everyone in the pool's flip turns today).

But the prize goes to the 30 something?? one of those ageless blob type people - kind of look like a spider because the legs and arms are thin but the stomach/body is not. She got in the water with quite a flourish. She put a pull buoy between her legs - and bent her legs up - so from the knee down were straight up in the air, then proceeded to do some sort of cross between breast stroke and butterfly arms - very loud and water everywhere - kind of like some fat, moving fountain. Oh and she kept her head out of the water for this...After a few lengths that stopped and I actually had to look up from my set to see what the loud, banging noise was - she had gotten a kick board and was now slapping both feet simultaneously onto the water. I presume she thought this is what a dolphin kick was. Who knew that someone's body part hitting the water could make such a sound! As I was exiting the pool she attempted to put this altogether with what can only be termed the special olympics of butterfly. Now I am not very good at butterfly. however I at least understand that dolphin kick initiates from the abdomen, and there are two kicks per arm stroke thus getting your upper body and arms OUT of the water. her version had the above described foot slapping motion - once per armstroke - ok that is loosely calling it an armstroke - rather an arm sweep - much like my kids do to splash a long distance.

I was so excited that during the whole second half of my workout I kept thinking of how I would be able to add to the strange denizens thread.....

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"I can't imagine what 40 strokes/25 yds looks like. No one jumped in to save you? [Katy]"

I've been reading this signature line for months now, and I laugh every time. I really couldn't imagine watching someone do 40 strokes/25 yards - until today:

Guy is roughly 35-45 years old and did 56 strokes in 25 yards! The push off the wall gives him a little momentum, but by the time he's getting close to the opposite wall, all forward movement has ceased. As my workout was ending, I was dying to know just how "fast" he was tearing through each 25. He and I started a lap together. I did 100 yard cool-down, got out of the water put my equipment away and had a little extra time to stretch in the 1:50 it took him to get to the other end of the pool!

The best part, though, was that he was doing some really decent flip-turns at each end!

Last week I saw a fat guy in the locker room--applying anti-perspirant. It was not the fact that he was applying anti-perspirant that was so disgusting, it was WHERE he was applying it--under his "man-boobs" in front, and under his "gills" in back.

This past weekend, I was safety kayak for a 5K open-water swim. I decided I would bird-dog the slowest swimmers, since they were presumably the most likely to need a rescue. One guy would swim 8-10 strokes freestyle at a time, starting off on-course, but ending up about 90 degrees off-course. He would then stop swimming and tread water for a awhile, then start swimming again, 8-10 strokes, and ending up 90 degrees off-course THE OTHER WAY! He asked me if I was a swimmer and I said yes. He told me he was mostly a triathlete, and he had just finished the Gulf Coast 70.3. I thought, don't they have a cut-off time in that? Another guy would swim 8-10 strokes freestyle, and then switch to breaststroke. His breaststroke consisted of mainly going up and down, with little or no forward progress discernable at all. He finally pulled a pair of webbed gloves out of his trunks and at least made a little more progress. He still finished dead last. A third guy was doing a bad version of elementary backstroke--the kind where you lift your arms and hands all the way out of the water over your head and then pull. He also picked his knees clear up out of the water. He was also quite the "zig-zagger," navigationally speaking. He finally requested a boat ride about half-way across. I was out there about four hours. The winner finished in about 1:04. There wasn't much beer left when I got through. :^(

I don't mind that at all. One of the more disgusting things that I had to do in the ER was EKG's on overly large people that didn't bother cleaning/drying/anything properly under the rolls and, er womanly parts (for females), resulting in dead skin and everything forming a soft, sticky goo in between the rolls. Blegh. And if the image is bad, the smell was worse.

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

LOL gross!!! There was a David Lee Roth video back in the 80's where he played an obnoxious guy in a fat suit and one of his pickup lines to a hot blonde was "Hey baby, there's parts of me that a washcloth can't reach!"

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"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

You couldn't pay me enough to be any kind of medical person and have to deal with some of that stuff. I'd spew right in the OR.

At Florida State, we had "wardrobe malfunction girl"... We had a beautiful outdoor 50 m pool and plenty of athletic co-eds who sunbathed in thongs. One such co-ed actually tried to work out, but instead "popped out". I remember I was swimming free in the lane next to her, took a breath, did a double take and then noticed every guy in the lane to my left was doing some "drill" so they could maintain their "line of vision".

sbr1989

Never disappointing to see this thread pop up again...

Last week I encountered a guy swimming "widths". In the early AM, our local pool has only 1 swim lane set up on one side. The remainder of the pool is for water-robics or whatever. A dude (maybe 25-30 yrs old) is swimming in the shallow end from the wall over to the lane line, touch turning at the line and swimming back to the wall. I double checked to confirm. Over and over. Widths. Very odd.

Brad

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3SIXTY5cycling.com

My favourite yesterday was the guy doing the floppy-armed backstroke (you know, the version of the backstroke where the arms never get past 45 degrees) with massive paddles on.

Today, a woman was swimming a few lanes over, and she seemed to go very slowly*, and had a very high stroke rate(over 120/min), and high stroke count. I was lapping her every couple lengths. She also had the weirdest kick I've ever seen....kinda like she was having a minor seizure in her calves...

As I was showering afterward, she got back in, and I counted her strokes for one length--You ready for this?: 72.**




P.S. I love this thread.


* I'm no speedy Gonzales myself...I was probably cruising 1:45/100 or so.
** 25 yard pool.

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"You'll find a slight squeeze on the hooter an excellent safety precaution, Miss Scrumptious."

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong." -- Richard Feynman

Great thread. Took a while to read it full.
First time to a posh pool in Buenos Aires, Argentina: paid an entrance fee, changed in the locker and when I was going to get out to the pool, the pool attendant asks me for the “revisacion”. Mind me I’m a native Spanish speaker and never heard of such word. So he then proceed to explain that before being allowed in the pool I have to get a superficial medical examination… and they have a Dr. on premises that looks at your skin and specially your genitals to be assured that you don’t have any kind of visible infection or desease.
So after being declared “kosher”, I was doing some laps thinking about how safe the pool was, when I realized….. if they have to check everyone, what sort of people were trying to get into the pool, lepers?

I have seen many of the previously described at our very crowded pool but saw a new one today. It's very rare you have a lane to yourself as there are only three and there are many marginal swimmers to share with. However with a little patience and you can usually get your workout in.
This guy first comes up to those in the hot tub and complains that it is not hot enough and needs to be at least 105 degrees to be useful. He then puts on a life jacket type device and proceeds to just float on his back. Takes up the entire lane while people are waiting to get a workout in. Not sure what the usefulness of that was.

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Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear.

New denizen today at my pool...."Trying to teach herself to swim Lady"....

This person stands in the shallow end of the pool, pysching herself up, and then flings herself into the water. Her arms flail madly, and she breathes by jerking her head straight up and then moves it violently to the side. This, of course, makes her come to pretty much a dead halt in the water, even though her arms are flying like mad. She gets to the deep end drop-off and stops, waits, catches her breath, and then walks back down to the shallow end, where she psychs herself up for the next trip down to the deep end. She was doing this when I got into the pool for my workout, and was still doing it when I left, 45 minutes later. Regardless of her technique, she was burning some serious calories....

I sorta wondered if maybe I shouldn't go ask her if she wanted some pointers...not that I'm much of a swimmer myself, but just to help her avoid some of the more obvious mistakes...

Spot

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

I saw the most casually dressed swimmer I have ever seen at the pool today. So I was swimming today and I look over in the lane next to me and there is a girl that looked like she was in her mid-20s and she was wearing a swim suit but over top of that she was wearing a button down shirt and cargo pants. She swam for a good twenty minutes doing the breast stroke the entire time and then left.

but just to help her avoid some of the more obvious mistakes...

Umm, ... okay. Just exactly what was she doing that wasn't a mistake?

;-)

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Behold the turtle! He makes progess only when he sticks his neck out. (James Bryant Conant)
GET OFF THE F*%KING WALL!!!!!!! (Doug Stern)
Brevity is the soul of wit. (William Shakespeare)

Maybe she has some seriously offensive tattoos to cover up?

I have seen crazy things over there in and around Hollywood....

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Ego numquam pronuncio mendacium,
sed sum homo salvaticus

Completely expected strange denizen today "Thinks he's Michael Phelps guy".

As I left to swim today, I thought "Dammit, with Phelps kicking ass, how full is the pool gunna be full of teenagers who think they are world-class butterfliers, but are really just having a splash fight with nobody in particular?"

I get there, and shower, and note the two kids in the lane next to the wall who I've never seen there before. I jump in, and warmup, and am stretching before I start, and sure enough, one kid turns to the other and says "He does it like this", and proceeds to do the most awful impression of butterfly I think I've ever seen. The splashing was impressive.

The other kid says "He kicks off the wall like this!", and proceeds to swim underwater with a pseudo-dolphin kick*. the first kid thougth that looked like fun, so they had a kick off the wall and swim underwater for 5 yards contest with each other.

They later turned into "swims freestyle without getting his face wet guy" and "race the guy swimming his 1500yd pace for 25 yards" guy.

People are a hoot.





*Disclaimer: I can not swim butterfly, and I'm not sure I can dolphin kick, either.

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"You'll find a slight squeeze on the hooter an excellent safety precaution, Miss Scrumptious."

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong." -- Richard Feynman

Dolphin kicking is easy. The hard part is getting away afterwards...

(Think about it, it'll come to you...)

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

That is too funny. I too thought that the pool will now be occupied with Olympic Fever folks. I saw a young kid politely ask a lady that had her own lane if he could split with her. He proceeded to do "kid butterfly" for about six or seven strokes. Unfortunately, the lady was swimming against him and he clocked her right in the head.

"As I left to swim today, I thought "Dammit, with Phelps kicking ass, how full is the pool gunna be full of teenagers who think they are world-class butterfliers, but are really just having a splash fight with nobody in particular?" "
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my pool was invaded by a bunch of young teens this morning, for the first time all summer. Usually it's me and 3-4 older gals only. Has to be the olympics, right? my favorite was the 14 year old wearing soccer shorts and a t-shirt, swimming laps with no goggles, head out of water the whole time.

6:15 a.m. What teenagers get up that early during summer break?

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Nobody's constipated on race morning

Well, swimmers, for one, but, obviously these were not. ;)

My pool was invaded yesterday as well. When I go during lunch, there are maybe 1 or 2 people in there. Yesterday it was two to a lane (x5)

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"Wow, are you a triathlete?"
If spoken by a non-swimmer, that's a compliment. When spoken by a swimmer.... -glitch
My wife's blog http://www.hostilewit.com

Our pool is the same with 2 in each lane and several more waiting yesterday. Today's experience was the strangest of the season. Had the entire pool area to myself for about 1500 yards of the workout. Thought they closed the pool and forgot to tell me.

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Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear.

how about this guy "the Mad bomber". Post swim, I am shaving, toilet stall door opens behind me and out walks this dude in swim cap, with his goggles on??? He proceeds to the pool without washing his hands or taking a quick pre-swim shower, WTF. Who lays cable with a swim cap and goggles on? Very strange

OK, perhaps not "strange," but somewhat amusing. I swim at a university pool and went for a workout over lunch. All lanes have the usual new students in for a week of working out before they decide to forget it and start drinking beer instead. The best, however, was the guy in the next lane racing 25 yds. flat out with no goggles and baggy shorts down past his knees. Rest at the other end for 3-5 minutes (if not longer) and repeat. I know it's nothing new to ST folks, but I still find it humorous.

But the one that I don't understand--and I'm sure every pool has this--are the former competitive swimmers who come in for about 45 minutes and spend about 25-30 of those standing in the water yakking. Workouts are 50--100 yds. at a time broken up by 3-5 minute gab sessions. They are much better swimmers than I am and it really doesn't bother me, except that they do tend to clog up lanes and get in the way.