Why do rec swimmers split the lane?

In the "making lemonade from lemons" category: Lap swimming with slower swimmers can actually be a great long-distance fartlek workout if the slower swimmers will go along with it. Occasionally, when this happens and I am in with people who know me, I will ask that they not stop at the walls to let me by, but to let me pass in the middle of the pool. It forces me to pay attention to who is where and sprint pretty hard to get by. Since I hate speedwork, it is a pretty painless way to do it. I think it's a great workout for open water race prep. -LBJ That was absolutely confirmed by the experience I made when I prepared for the 24 hour swim in Radkersburg/Austria last month. I was tempted to quit my training sessions in the pool because at times it was so annoying not te be able to keep my pace and my rhythm. I tried to continue to swim without murmuring and grumbling and was greatly rewarded. Every time I had to bypass a slow swimmer (especially a breaststroke swimmer) I was forced to speed up to prevent a head-on collision with somebody coming from the opposite direction, which I thought was very annoying! Anyway, I didn't enjoy the workout as I should have, not knowing that this situation provided the perfect training-conditions for the race. As a matter of fact, I improved my personal best (distance covered within 24 hours) by 150%! By the way, the conditions during the race were not "better" compared to my training: 90 solo swimmers and 78 relay swimmers divided among 8 lanes can sometimes cause quite a jostle. The neccessity to change my pace frequently in order to overtake slower swimmers helped me to overcome the monotony that I was confronted with while swimming more than 600 laps. BTW: "fartlek" not to be mixed up with "fart let" :) @LBJ: I am greatly motivated by your comment, because it helps me to change my attitude towards long training sessions in the pool that I didn't handle quite well until now: if I couldn't find "enough" room, I chose the easy way out, ie not to train at all. cheers Gerald

In the "making lemonade from lemons" category: Lap swimming with slower swimmers can actually be a great long-distance fartlek workout if the slower swimmers will go along with it. Occasionally, when this happens and I am in with people who know me, I will ask that they not stop at the walls to let me by, but to let me pass in the middle of the pool. It forces me to pay attention to who is where and sprint pretty hard to get by. Since I hate speedwork, it is a pretty painless way to do it. I think it's a great workout for open water race prep. -LBJ That was absolutely confirmed by the experience I made when I prepared for the 24 hour swim in Radkersburg/Austria last month. I was tempted to quit my training sessions in the pool because at times it was so annoying not te be able to keep my pace and my rhythm. I tried to continue to swim without murmuring and grumbling and was greatly rewarded. Every time I had to bypass a slow swimmer (especially a breaststroke swimmer) I was forced to speed up to prevent a head-on collision with somebody coming from the opposite direction, which I thought was very annoying! Anyway, I didn't enjoy the workout as I should have, not knowing that this situation provided the perfect training-conditions for the race. As a matter of fact, I improved my personal best (distance covered within 24 hours) by 150%! By the way, the conditions during the race were not "better" compared to my training: 90 solo swimmers and 78 relay swimmers divided among 8 lanes can sometimes cause quite a jostle. The neccessity to change my pace frequently in order to overtake slower swimmers helped me to overcome the monotony that I was confronted with while swimming more than 600 laps. BTW: "fartlek" not to be mixed up with "fart let" :) @LBJ: I am greatly motivated by your comment, because it helps me to change my attitude towards long training sessions in the pool that I didn't handle quite well until now: if I couldn't find "enough" room, I chose the easy way out, ie not to train at all. cheers Gerald