Swim Rant

Oh AMEN to the people not leaving the full 5 seconds behind you! It sucks when you're constantly getting your toes tapped!

Originally posted by nkfrench Mid-set, the person in front of me will wait until it's his turn to start a repeat, will hesitate for 5-10 seconds (blowing my send-off) and then decide to sit out the repeat. Obviously he's waiting for you to take over the lead so he can then draft off you for a while! Actually, by you not going on your sendoff, you're the one messing up his set ;)

People who can't swim straight annoy me. Lane hogs. People who give piss poor swimming advice to other swimmers annoy me. All too often I hear people in nearby lanes giving advice to other swimmers that is not worthy of repeating. I am sure these people mean well and they think they know what they are talking about, but everybody would be much better off if they just kept it to themselves. A most recent example was to lead the pull with your elbow, the faster your arm moves through the water the faster you will go. :rolleyes: People who hold their suits in the spinner for 30 seconds. In my experience, a quick 5 second spin works quite well and more time only serves to annoy those waiting behind you.

Originally posted by TheGoodSmith Middle aged people who workout for more than an hour a day 4-5 days a week. People who can swim incredibly fast despite working out less than 4-5 days a week for an hour or less :D Dang, beat by gull by one minute!

People who try to race you during the drill set. Or those who don't understand yet that going ALL OUT for every single set (including the recovery ones) won't make them faster in the long run.

I think the only thing that really annoys me is the very heavily perfumed person next to me. That stuff gets in my mouth, my lungs, gah. Who needs perfume to go to the pool?

I always love the people(one's that don't swim well) that push off the wall, right as you are doing a flip turn. One would think that they would wait til you either stopped or pushed off before they do, but nope.

So many pet peeves ... one that comes to mind is when we're doing a 10 x _ _ _ kind of set and on the first few repeats somebody a little faster than me will just blow me away while I kill myself trying to stay in it. Then, I start to narrow the gap and when I think I have finally ground them down over the long set and will "win", they get out and leave ! Either they didn't want to get caught by me, or the reason they were going so fast was because they knew they were only doing a part of the set/workout anyhow. A variation is when they sit out a repeat and put on fins.

We'll be doing some kind of short-rest "benchmark" set to show progress from one month to the next. Mid-set, the person in front of me will wait until it's his turn to start a repeat, will hesitate for 5-10 seconds (blowing my send-off) and then decide to sit out the repeat. Or he decides to swim breastroke as a recovery repeat mid-set but still goes in front in a 6'-wide lane.

Fins are one of my biggest annoyances. You know the type, they swim sans fins for a few hundred, come in panting to the wall, put on some fins, and then leave the wall every time I do. Arggg! It is quite satisfying to keep up with or pass somebody using fins though...that makes it all worthwhile.