Swim Rant

Noodlers who refuse to share a lane. More specifically, 400 pound noodlers with kickboards who refuse to share a lane. My lunchtime swims are done in a small SCY pool with only 3 lanes. Unfortunately, the genius (separate rant) who designed this pool put a set of steps in one end of one lane, rendering it useless for flip turns. That leaves 2 lanes for lap swimming. The usual standard at this pool of mostly newbies is not to share lanes. Usually it isn't a problem because (nice!) there's nobody else in the pool. Every so often it is, and in those cases you can usually quickly agree to share a lane left/right. Not today! Lane 1 is occupied by a guy swimming a mile or something. He won't stop. In Lane 2, the 400 pound noodler with kickboard insists -- insists -- that the entire lane is needed for kicking, at 4 minutes per 50, and it is impossible -- impossible -- to do these kicking laps in the lane with the steps. I thought briefly about pointing out that you can't do a flip turn while hanging onto a kickboard, and/or that at 4 minutes per 50, missing one wall by a couple of feet was not going to make a difference, but the noodler didn't seem like the kind of person to whom a successful appeal to reason could be made. Normally I'm pretty sanguine about getting squeezed out, beacuse I can do drills or something in the crippled lane. Today I just didn't feel like it & left. Bottom line -- it's ok, 400 pound noodler needed it worse than I do.

Noodlers who refuse to share a lane. More specifically, 400 pound noodlers with kickboards who refuse to share a lane. My lunchtime swims are done in a small SCY pool with only 3 lanes. Unfortunately, the genius (separate rant) who designed this pool put a set of steps in one end of one lane, rendering it useless for flip turns. That leaves 2 lanes for lap swimming. The usual standard at this pool of mostly newbies is not to share lanes. Usually it isn't a problem because (nice!) there's nobody else in the pool. Every so often it is, and in those cases you can usually quickly agree to share a lane left/right. Not today! Lane 1 is occupied by a guy swimming a mile or something. He won't stop. In Lane 2, the 400 pound noodler with kickboard insists -- insists -- that the entire lane is needed for kicking, at 4 minutes per 50, and it is impossible -- impossible -- to do these kicking laps in the lane with the steps. I thought briefly about pointing out that you can't do a flip turn while hanging onto a kickboard, and/or that at 4 minutes per 50, missing one wall by a couple of feet was not going to make a difference, but the noodler didn't seem like the kind of person to whom a successful appeal to reason could be made. Normally I'm pretty sanguine about getting squeezed out, beacuse I can do drills or something in the crippled lane. Today I just didn't feel like it & left. Bottom line -- it's ok, 400 pound noodler needed it worse than I do.