Swimmers Unite! Shame about the facilities...

thecolourbox

So do we have any swimmers here? Doesn't seem to be the "cool" exercise to do with most people I know preferring to pose lifting weights or spending thousands on a bike which weighs nothing to ride around wearing Lycra

I go twice or thrice a week if I can though am very disillusioned with the facilities available for those of us inclined to jump in chlorine smelling water and splash about back and forth. I go to Birmingham University's pool, they spent £55m on a gym and pool but (and only a university as rubbish as Birmingham could deliberately do this) it's not quite 50m long so the Olympic committee can't commandeer it, and the lanes are slightly narrower than standard as well. When I started going when the pool is in 50m mode (can either be 50m or 2x25m with a boom) they used to have a double slow lane, then single medium lane and single fast lane. There's always a club in the other four lanes. But because people are stupid they complained the lanes were too narrow so now they only have a double slow and double medium lane and it's practically impossible to swim because the medium swimmers are too slow and there's no room to overtake because people can't swim to the sides.

They've just closed a pool near us but even when it was open, public sessions were only 9pm until 10pm. They've rebuilt one in Northfield but there is only one hour windows again in the evenings for proper swimming.

Just seems such a shame that a once popular sport is basically not provided for, for those that want to do it seriously rather than pottering about swimming at bizarre 90 degree angles with their heads in the air! 

I've pointed out loads of times to the university that they are basically excluding good swimmers from using their facilities, yet they've offered nothing but bull in return, and are putting their prices up to £35 per month in August!

Is this the same in other cities and areas? Anybody care to discuss their swimming antics?

m_c

I wouldn't exactly call myself a swimmer, as 25m with a breather at each end is more my style, but Edinburgh seems to be well catered for.
Commie pool time table can be seen at https://www.edinburghleisure.co.uk/assets/contentfiles/pdf/RCP_Generic_April-June_2018_A4_web.pdf
School holidays there are more 25m sessions mid-week with one half reduced depth so it's more family friendly.

That's the biggest of the ten pools Edinburgh council run pools, and there are private and Uni pools as well.

thecolourbox

Oh wow yeah that looks great, although the Birmingham university timetable looks very similar - what are the lanes like when the clubs are in as well? 

duotone

Haven't swam in years but this past week I've been looking at starting to go again,mainly as a bit of variety instead of just going to the gym. 

Around my way (NW London) it seems to be around £6 a time...which seems expensive as my gym membership is just £22 for the whole month.  I'm still hunting for a local & cheap pool atm.

Koa

Probably the best excercise I ever did, had to stop due to a recurring ear infection, I do miss it though. 

bbill335

One thing Birmingham's got more of than anyone else is canals - jump in the cut, mate! Although a narrowboat probably doesn't go much quicker than the slow swimmers you've mentioned!

Funkfingers

thecolourbox said:

So do we have any swimmers here?

Floaters, in the main, I suspect.

jellyroll

I like swimming but hate fighting my way through other swimmers (or feeling pressure to get out of the way of those faster than me).

fandango

Funkfingers said:

thecolourbox said:

So do we have any swimmers here?

Floaters, in the main, I suspect.

Careful what you wish for. Especially if someone doesnt make it out to the toilets in time....

m_c

@thecolourbox I generally avoid busy times(I work shifts, so get the luxury of going during the pre-lunch quiet period), however any club sessions I've seen are only using 2 lanes.

I know they did increase the number of full lane sessions about a year ago due to demand, as they used to only put 4 or 5 lanes out, with the rest just open swimming.

mr-mac

I like the tripple pool they built in dundee.  25m lane pool, teaching pool, then dive pool... Teaching pool has a bottom that can be raised out water when not in use or adjusted to suit height of lesson for kids or adults.  Clever bit is the walls between them and floor can be dropped to make it a full length 50m pool for competitions.

although the wave/leisure pool part isn't as good as old one

victorludorum

You'll need to find a gym with a pool, as public swimming is always a nightmare for anyone who's decent. Your other alternative is to join the 'Masters' section of a local club. They will have set times and sessions, although they will be 'proper' swimmers. Masters swimmers are usually great, freindly  groups of ex-competitors who want to stay fit and do the odd competition with an age range of 30- 60/70 year olds. Even if you don't think you're up to snuff, maybe go along and have a test and see what they say.

EricTheWeary

Probably told this story before but a few years ago I went to the local public swimming baths with my son and as I was buying the tickets they said something like ' you know it's half term.' As I was there with my school aged son of course I did, I just assumed she was pointing out it was going to be busy. 
When we got in there was a huge inflatable obstacle course in the middle of the pool and they weren't allowing lane swimming at all. So I was the only adult doing the obstacle course. Which I wasn't very good at either. 

Gassage

When the Olympic bid was written, it was a fact that Dusseldorf had more municipal pools than England.

Iamnobody

I never learnt to do a decent front crawl so I’m simply a breast stroker.

The gym I go to has a 25m pool but in the last few years the only time I’ve used it is to take my kids.

I would swim more if I had a decent technique. I don’t have time or inclination to improve it though.

joneve

Yep, love swimming. I do it more now because of triathlons, but I've always loved it, and always been a pretty strong swimmer (after blooming late - didn't get rid of armbands til I was about 5) as I played Water Polo at school. 

Our local pool isn't anything special but does what it needs to do. Costs about £4 for a session, is 25m and is never horrendously busy that it makes it impossible to swim. 

In fact I went this morning and at the end of my session I was the only one in the pool. (I did get told off by some bint when I got in, as I went into a lane that was booked out (which I've never seen there before)

Got into open water swimming last year as I had entered the London Triathlon (which involves swimming in the docks outside Excel), and it's an absolute game changer. So much more enjoyable that pool swimming, which can become a bit boring. 

thecolourbox

@bbill335 I have actually considered getting a kayak for the cut as it runs from right by my house into town. I'm not sure I've got the immune system to swim in it though, god knows what Cadbury and the UoB pump into it...

It is interesting that swimming seems to be made quite difficult to do throughout the country, though the Edinburgh set up looks decent, presumably from the Commonwealth Games there the last time. I don't have a lot of faith in Birmingham to get the set up as good after ours in a few years time, plus as it's in Smethwick not Birmingham it's about 30 minutes drive each way.

Joining a gym with a pool is not really an option around here, as far as I know they are all either 18m or 20m pools which are wholly pointless - Once i've pushed off I'm normally at 10m or thereabouts, plus there's no length of pool to overtake if required which is why we got so excited when they opened the 50m pool as that should be ideal for serious swimming but as with most things they've made it only convenient for the lowest common denominator.

Re joining a masters club, I did consider it as sometimes Birmingham Masters train in the Uni pool. I spoke to the coach though and he said I wouldn't be allowed to join in at the Uni pool because I'd be a new member, I'd have to train at the school nearby instead. I go there with the missus so I wouldn't be able to stop going there, so there's the extra expense for a lesser pool, so I'm just not sure it's worth it. The coach was a bit arrogant as well but I know there are others available - I just said "well in that case I'll just find out when you're here and follow your session in the next lane along!". But this was when they had a fast lane that I could do that in...

@joneve Sounds good down Gloucester way, I too am doing a triathlon in June (JLL property industry traithlon) but not managed to train enough for it because of the pool situation. In the past three months, there have been only two occasions where I've been able to swim the 750m without stopping, due to getting stuck behind slow people who insist on pushing off in front of me EVERY SINGLE TIME.

thecolourbox

I have to say though, it's not that people are slower than me that I have the problem with, not at all. To some, I'm probably slow to be fair. It's the "completely unaware of what's around them" approach of pushing off in front of people who are clearly much faster than they are that gets me. You often get people visibly scrambling and rushing to get themselves in front of somebody coming the other way and it's so frustrating.

You therefore never swim at your preferred pace, because you either have to deliberately hold yourself back to go slow, or you have to swim slightly faster to overtake when there's a small window where nobody is flapping about in the middle of the lane.

I blame the pool management more than them though, if there was a medium and fast lane separately we'd be fine as they are correctly in the medium lane. But as is always the case with that university, they won't tolerate anybody else disputing that they know best, and much prefer to have nice shiny expensive assets in their name than actually support their customers in any way whatsoever!

axisus

I swim 50 lengths of a 25m pool every day before work. Done it for many years. I'm quite lucky as I can pretty much get a fast lane every day with maybe two of us using it, sometimes just me. Most swimmers seem to get the pool etiquette of letting a faster swimmer pass at the end.

No, I'm not saying where it is. I don't want none of you jerks turning up & filling the lanes.

joneve

thecolourbox said:

I have to say though, it's not that people are slower than me that I have the problem with, not at all. To some, I'm probably slow to be fair. It's the "completely unaware of what's around them" approach of pushing off in front of people who are clearly much faster than they are that gets me. You often get people visibly scrambling and rushing to get themselves in front of somebody coming the other way and it's so frustrating.

You therefore never swim at your preferred pace, because you either have to deliberately hold yourself back to go slow, or you have to swim slightly faster to overtake when there's a small window where nobody is flapping about in the middle of the lane.

I blame the pool management more than them though, if there was a medium and fast lane separately we'd be fine as they are correctly in the medium lane. But as is always the case with that university, they won't tolerate anybody else disputing that they know best, and much prefer to have nice shiny expensive assets in their name than actually support their customers in any way whatsoever!

Yea, the speed people swim is rarely the problem - it's the fact they don't give way when you reach the end that drives me mad. Most people I've shared a lane with have been fine. I'm not the quickest by any means, but quicker than most casual swimmers, but people are generally accommodating and will wait at the end of a length for me to pass. 

victorludorum

Find a smaller club; they're more friendly as less competitive in my experience.