Does the pool you swim at have some designation for speeds in lanes designated for lap swimming (outside of masters swim practices)? if so, do they enforce it, do people generally pick lanes with people who are the same speed as they are? if you have designated speed lanes, is it just by fast, medium, slow, or do any of you have pace times (ie, you must swim 1:30 per 100m or faster to be in this lane)?
We have 2 “stroke practice” lanes (ie: old people walking up and down), 3 “moderate” lanes, and 3 “fast” lanes. Considering how slow I actually am, at my pool I should be in the fast lanes in comparison to the others who swim there.
Nobody enforces a damn thing which drives me crazy (why have the designation then?) and people just choose a lane based on if anyone is already in it. Yesterday every lane had 1 person in it, except one. Another guy came in to join me, of course, with his fins and snorkel. I got to the end of the lane, looked at him, looked at the lane next to me (which was empty), looked at him again (trying to say without saying, “maybe you should go into that lane”), and then moved to the other lane. He was incredibly slow, as it turns out, too.
I swim at two different pools, and neither has a posted speed designation.
The university pool at which I swim typically has enough lanes that there’s usually no sharing. When there is, people seem to look for a lane occupied by someone who at a comparable level. For example, I’m a fast recreational swimmer, but slow for a competitive swimmer. I won’t ask to share a lane with a swim team member. However, the “water joggers” seem to avoid me like the plague. (It might be because I’m comparatively fast, or possibly because I’ve been known to toss in 25 yards of butterfly when I see one of them walk through the door, and butterfly is not my smoothest stroke, so there’s plenty of splashing…)
The city pool at which I swim also typically has enough lanes so there’s usually no sharing. When there is, I typically have to share with someone who’s very slow, but since the lanes are split side-to-side, that doesn’t bother me much. I just stick to open turns when they’re close enough that I might accidentally kick them with a sloppily executed flip turn.
I generally keep a Baby Ruth in my pool bag - I lob it in a crowded lane and voila! My own training space with floating snack.
I swim at a 6-lane SCY indoor pool. Lanes 3 & 4 are designated as “circle swimming only”, which would work well if the recreational snorkelers left them for faster swimmers. But they don’t. Come to think of it, it would also work out well if the floaters swam together in the circle lanes and left the other lanes for the fish. It would work better if there were speed limits posted. Suggestion box time…
I have the same experiences at my pool as you do.
People seem to think I’m a good swimmer when in reality I’m just good compared to a non-swimmer.
jaretj
Pretty much every public pool I’ve ever been to (during lap swim) has had little sandwich boards to designate slow/medium/fast - but I’ve never seen them enforced, and people generally swim/walk/float wherever the hell they feel like.
I think there’s a psychological thing where no-one wants to swim in the “slow” lane until all the other lanes are full - I have no idea. I’ve pretty much given up on hoping that anyone at the pool will have even the slightest shred of pool etiquette. The thing that bugs me the most is when people hang out at the ends of the pool right at the “T” - but a couple of extra splashy flip turns done inches off their hip usually encourages them to move over. I also hate it when people push off right when I’m coming in to turn, because I can all but guarantee that I’m going to smash into them when I streamline off the wall.
These problems seem to diminish in direct correlation to the size of the pool - so at Kits I’ll run into the issue FAR less than in an LCM pool, which is in turn better than a SCM pool.
3 lanes marked slow, medium, fast. Very few people seem to understand what it means or where they fit (aqua joggers are not medium!). Frustrated me to the point that I stopped lap swimming. I rarely have the urge to hold someone’s head under water while OW swimming. It’s best for all involved.
Last night I came home furious and told me husband I’m going to drag him to the lake twice every week with a kayak so he can kayak while I swim, so I don’t have to fight the riduculous rules at the pools (small town and 2 50m pools, and 1 25 yard pool and I still can’t get in a decent 45 minute workout!). He was not real thrilled, as its a 20 minute drive, and he’s not really into kayaking anymore. Now I’m thinking I could build a small pool in my backyard, drop in an endless pool, and a heater and swim almost year round, whenever I want. I know I would be bored, but maybe boredom is better than frustration.
Every U of M pool I swam at had all the lanes divided up by speed during rec and lap swim. And things generally worked out well right when the pool opened.
The breakdown cam about an hour into the session when you’d get no one in the slow lanes, no one in the fast lanes, and four people to a lane in the medium lanes who were all doing different things. So everyone just shrugs, moves over to an open spot in the pool regardless of official label, and does whatever.