Lately I've not been making friends.
I am hitting people during fly. Sometimes it is from another lane since I recover my right arm over the lane line, and sometimes it is a lane mate. I have a 76" reach so I am roughly as wide as a lane.
I try to look and f I see someone I can sometimes do an alligator arm recovery, but this does not always work. People come up fast and you can't always get out of the way.
Is there a trick to this, or is hitting part of the deal?
Sometimes I'll lead so I can at least do a 25 without an issue, but anything over a 25 and I am now paranoid.
I use extra kicks with arms in streamline when needed - usually a long SDK will let 2 to 3 folks pass. Also, if you have 2 lanes the same speed, you can do a fly-snake - go down in lane 1, under the laneline and into lane 2 to swim back. If you can pull everyone out of the pool, you can snake through 8 lanes for a 200 fly with no collisions - you swim down the middle of the lane. Fastest swimmers go first - our age group team will do 5 x 200 fly snake at least a couple of times a month. You can have them drill some, swim some, extra. It's a great way to do fly without risking collisions.
--mj
I use extra kicks with arms in streamline when needed - usually a long SDK will let 2 to 3 folks pass. Also, if you have 2 lanes the same speed, you can do a fly-snake - go down in lane 1, under the laneline and into lane 2 to swim back. If you can pull everyone out of the pool, you can snake through 8 lanes for a 200 fly with no collisions - you swim down the middle of the lane. Fastest swimmers go first - our age group team will do 5 x 200 fly snake at least a couple of times a month. You can have them drill some, swim some, extra. It's a great way to do fly without risking collisions.
--mj
