You know, the women's masters swimming 80-85 AG probably isn't terribly deep in terms of flyers. Could be she's planning on trying to cherry pick and medal at nationals

Lane 3: A curious case. During his 3 stroke swim phase, he actually looks like a good swimmer. But then he decides to breathe. Every third stroke, he comes to a complete stop and rolls over completely onto his back, takes a huge breath and then rolls back over and resumes swimming. If I had never seen him swim before, I would think he is doing a bizarre drill to teach body roll but having observed him a number of times, that is just how he swims. I think it is very interesting that he alternates sides for the roll.


I am just learning (teaching myself) how to swim. For the longest time I did not have the breathing down so I would do a flip to back to breath. Maybe he is in the same boat. Then again you said he had a good stroke. Mine is aweful.

I have been swimming at the Y, 24 Hour Fitness, and community pools and those folks seem to follow me around to whatever pool I go to. But last summer I had the strangest encounter I have ever had in a pool and just to let you know I'm over 50 and have been swimming competitively since I was a kid so I have been in a lot of pools. I was in the pool doing my usual Saturday morning workout and the only other person in the pool was my training partner. After about 25 minutes into the workout I swam into something that was very hard. I thought one of the early kids that comes to the pool had thrown something into the pool but when I looked up we had been joined by a water moccasin. He was about 5 feet long and 2 inches or so in diameter. He was a very good swimmer and needless to say my training partner and I cleared out of the pool as quickly as we could. The snake was amazing to watch swim across the pool and then use his body against the pool ledge to get himself out of the pool.

^^^^ WOW!

Similar thing happened to me a couple years ago when I lived in Houston. I was swimming at what we affectionately called the "Ghetto Bally's", and came face to face with a snake near the deep end wall. Fortunately I was doing kick sets, and was able to flip it out of the water with my kickboard, and kill it with said kickboard once on deck. There was a glass wall between the pool and the club manager's office. I banged on the wall, and pointed to the snake, and his only response was "what was that doing in the pool?" No shit, that was my question.

The best thing was the looks I was getting from the brothas in the hot tub. Some crazy white dude in flippers beating the shit out of a snake with a kickboard.

Thank you for totally catering to my huge phobia of snakes and freaking me out. My favorite summer pool is pretty much in the middle of the swamp (there's a 100 foot boardwalk over wetlands to get there) and so far, the wildlife's been limited to fishing the occasional frog out of there in favor of less-chlorinated water.

Oddly, we got more wildlife back when I was lifeguarding at the inner city pool summers to help pay for college, and we used to get into arguments before morning swim lessons started about whose turn it was to chase the ducks having sex out in the diving well area back toward the park's proper duck pond.

I walked into the local "Ghetto" LA Fitness, which has an outdoor pool. It's not attached to the gym, and it's almost always empty. Well, right there poolside was a tattooed chick with her top off. She covered up once I walked in. We had a laugh about it; I guess she had been alone there for an hour and figured no one was coming. Since then, I've walked in to see her changing in the bushes a few times. Nature girl makes swimming fun again.

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I guess maybe I'm one of the lucky ones who's Y has a nice 6-lane 25y lap pool kept at a nice low 70s (for the swimmers) and a smaller 4-lane heated therapeutic pool (for the little old ladies doing weird noodle classes and the assorted riff-raff). We have the typical "swimmers" who--god love 'em for coming out and trying to stay in shape--can barely make it through a few laps before collapsing on the deck and guzzling their way through a liter of Gatorade, but nothing really new, strange, or unsettling.

I did have to share a lane once with this one idiot, who I immediately named "Depth Charge." He was a bigger, burly type who looked like he might have played American football in his college days, but now had gone slightly to seed with a decent beer belly starting to cast a shadow over his baggy shark-bait trunks and the muscles in his arms and legs smoothed by a decent layer of fat. He looked pissed off just standing there, even before he got into the pool. Even his thin carpet of shoulder hair, wafting in the air-handler breeze, looked irritated. He gets into the water with the grace of a tazered meth addict and immediately starts this...rhythmic pounding of the water. Like the water had said something about his mother and simply needed a good beat-down. Every kick was a full, out-of-the-water Chuck Norris kick that sent water rocketing towards the ceiling and every over-reached recovery was a flabby-armed, kung-fu action chop flat onto the water's surface that sprayed water 10 feet in every direction with a wet smack.

His wake pushed me to the outside of the lane--I admit, it was good practice for breathing around waves and staying on-course--and I bobbed around like a twig. He spent about 15 painful minutes plodding up and down pool like a WWII destroyer sweeping for a type VII German U-boot. Then, apparently satisfied that he'd sufficiently deafened all of us and lowered the pool level by a good 3 inches, he got out and staggered off to the showers.

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Riding the Awesome Train With: Dark Horse Coaching

Low 70's? Isn't that really cold?

I ran, well swam into my first "WTF?!" situation at the pool today. Relatively empty indoor city pool so I had a lane all to myself. In the next lane over enters a "seasoned" lady, maybe 60. She proceeds to swim in the oddest manner I've ever seen.

She grabbed one of the water weights from the shelf on the side of the pool and stuck it under her chin and commenced to some sort of herky-jerky swim motion which can only be described as I thought she was choking herself in an attempt to drown. It was actually a little unnerving to look at each time we crossed paths.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

FLA Jill didn't mean to freak you out. The pool that I met the snake in is next to a swamp although there are lots of things between the actual swamp and the pool. We are used to seeing little snakes and frogs that have gotten into the pool and were unable to escape. I'm still going to the pool to swim I just kind of stay more aware than before.

So, I'm at the community pool watching my kids race at a high school swim meet. There are maybe 200 kids at the meet, and an equal number of parents there. 6 lanes of the pool are roped off for the meet, and two remaining lanes are open for public swimming.

A guy in a red Speedo with black polka dots walks up to one of the open lanes. He's got pretty defined legs, but not the upper body development of a swimmer...and a bit of a gut. I immediately think, "Triathlete". He proceeds to stand around on the deck in front of his lane for at least 10 minutes while the kids are doing their warmup. He finally gets in the pool and slogs out what I'd guess was a 2000 without pause -- no intervals, no swim aids, etc.

The swim meet starts.

200 kids, 200 parents, 10 water aerobics exercisers, and 20 lifeguards, timers, and officials all stop what they are doing (even those in the pool) and stand for the national anthem.

Except this guy. He continues his 2000M cruise, stopping briefly at the wall to look around to see why all activity has stopped, then swims on.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

I was not going to post this but as it is burned into my brain I find it necessary to share...Yesterday I just finished my swim at a local college pool and was in the locker room changing. This 300 pound guy comes slogging in after his swim. This dude had to be literally lifted into and out of the pool by the pool lift. I have no problem with that as the guy is obviously trying to exercise, which is a plus for him. However, once he entered the locker room the circus was on. He could not have reveled more in his almighty nakedness. Walking around talking to everyone he knew without a stich. What was killing me is that he found it necessary to plop his huge bare ass down on every bench in the locker room and engage in all sorts of non ending conversations with anyone who would listen. For the love of God put a towel down. I would say his junk was hanging out but it was buried somewhere under his massive gut. Then it was back to his locker to painfully attempt to cut his toenails. Yellow toe nails were flying everywhere. Then he hoisted up the gut, blow dried his junk then slathered some fugazy cream all over his ball bag and ass area. At that point I asked for the check and had to leave.

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Roar Lion Roar

OK, so I walk over to an empty lane, and just happen to glance over to the left to watch the other guy in the pool. He's wearing a snorkel, which is no big deal, but his turns at the end of each lap were mind-boggling. Never lifting his head above the water, he would carefully reach out as he neared the end of the pool, grab on to the edge with both hands, then slooooooowly turn himself around. Then he would carefully position himself at the wall and then slooooowly push off and begin again. What made this sorta interesting to me is that at no time whatsoever during this 15-20 second manuever would he lift his head out of the water, but would stay face down, breathing through his snorkel for the entire time. Weird.

Spot

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

It's time to bump 4 years of laughter and creepiness for the holidays. As I'm still on power-down time, I have nothing to share for now.

Just wait for 2011...

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DFL > DNF > DNS

My all time favorite thread, aside from the Hottie Thread. I've post about Orgasm Guy who moans and makes other orgasm like noises while taking his post swim shower. Not only is he still moaning after all these years, now he starts moaning as he's entering the locker room. It's really weird

I too love this thread and all I want is to find someone at the gym to post about!!!

Speaking of that Sally, I think you moved locations didn't you? I thought I saw your name at a new gym with the cycling club? I've seen more of you on the forum lately too, so it must be power down time! ;-)

Keep me posted if there's anyone at our new gym that I need to watch out for!!!

-Matt

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In a year from now, you'll wish you would've started today.

To be honest I don't think they, the strange ones, are the worst offenders. They are easy to spot and are remarkably easy to avoid and aside from the creepiness not much of a bother really.

It's the serious swimmers that bug me. It's been a while since I bothered with a public pool swim, but whenever I went in the past it was always the "serious" swimmer that provoked the most irritation.

Serious swimmers do sets, they do pull sets and kick sets and repeats and split sets and and stroke sets and stroke changes and breathing sets and warmups and warm downs and it goes on and on. And they do it all in the same dam *!^*>*'g lane.

So there I would be, doing a reasonably long swim at a "fast lane" pace and the serious swimmer would pull out a buoy and start kicking. And in a couple of laps there is a traffic jam behind them. They're oblivious because don't you know, they're serious swimmers and serious swimmers don't change lanes, when they slow down, you slow down. When they go from freestyle, to backstroke, to fly to breast, well make way fellas, because they're serious swimmers and they don't change , we have to.

They're the strange denizens of the deep to me. They ought to know better, they're trained swimmers and there should be a pool etiquette, only it does not apply to them. I don't expect the weirdos to get it right. But the rest, take a look around, change lanes and let the lane set the pace.

I'm sure none of you reading this have ever bottled up a lane doing your own private set. Of course not.

There now, don't you feel better already ;-)

Slowtwitch, where anger comes to play...

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DFL > DNF > DNS

I've post about Orgasm Guy who moans and makes other orgasm like noises while taking his post swim shower.

I heard someone doing this just last week in the next shower stall, creeped me out.

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

Here's my contribution to this thread:
I was a swimmer in the 80's and swam 2h every day after school. At least once a month we'd spot a "forgot-I'm-naked man".
There were two saunas, a "warm" lounge room, the showers and the pool hall. The old men (it was always a 60+ man) would sit in the sauna, move out to the lounge room to cool down (naked), forget about the fact that they were still naked, stroll out into the pool hall...

They would always get genuinely shocked/embarrassed and quickly cover themselves and run back to safety. So nothing creepy, just mindless old men. Sometimes it could take half a minute before they realized they were being stared/pointed/laughed at.

This was always a nice change to the endless kick board sets :-)

I'll submit my latest strange denizen of the pool after laughing at this thread for a few years:

"VERY-annoying, float-under-my-lane (shallow end!) with-goggles-and-watch-me-swim-12-year-old Girl"
I think she might have been a bit "off," but she would float under my lane as I swam, in the shallow end no less, and watch me - which she did for at least 20 minutes. Whatever, kind of creepy, but I just concentrated on my lap count. Then, after 20 minutes of that she must have finally got bored because every time I would swim over to that end of the lane and do a flip turn, she would jump in, seemingly trying to miss me by as little as possible. Parents? Lifeguards? Apparently she was alone, unsupervised because I finally had to pull the "mean-guy" card and ask her, in an aggressive tone, to get out of my lane. She booked out of there... Seriously? WTF?!

Phog, I think you're missing the point. It's not about avoiding them (well ok, sometimes it is) but rather marveling at their strangeness. One of my favorites on here was the chubby guy who would swim a lap, get out of the pool, do a cartwheel on the pool deck and get back in. In fact, I think the poster posted a pic of the guy doing a cartwheel. LOL...

Might be related to the guy I saw at the pool awhile ago. Hung out at the end of the pool in the lane next to mine, spent a fair amount of time just hanging there and every once and awhile swam a lap or two. Every time I did a flip turn in the deep end I'd push off and see this guy hanging out underwater staring at me. After awhile of that happening, the next time he was at the shallow end I rotated the opposite direction (awkward, after 20 ish years of rotating to the right) to see if this was happening there, too. Sure enough, he was hanging out underwater staring.

Would've been alot less creepy had he just asked how to do a flip turn.

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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

I swim at a local Boys and Girls Club where generally I am the only person under 75 (I'm M40-45, in case you give a s***). The funny thing here is that there are no lane ropes, so it's nothing to bump into an old fart swimming perpendicular to the lanes. It's all good, they are nice folks, but the one dude who creeps me out is the guy I call "socket man." He removes his fake eye to swim. That is still ok, except he breathes to the socket side so every once in a while you will see that staring at you. I just kinda pretend they are the folks from that old movie "Cocoon." I keep thinking one day I will show up to swim and they will all be like 12 years old again and heading off on the spaceship. I will miss the one lady who looked at me once and said: "Are you in the Olympics?" That made my day.