Swimming With Friends/Finding Friends to Swim With

THE BUDDY SYSTEM

Find a compatible training partner (or two or three) and make a pact to meet at the pool one or more times a week. Not only will you feel more obliged to keep the appointment and end up swimming more regularly, you’ll both swim better with company.

You’ll probably soon find you weren’t alone looking for training mates, as your little band grows. One winter I decided I needed the push of meeting a couple of friends to work out at 6:30 each morning. Frequently, our “workout circle” grew by five or six people as other stray predawn exercisers asked if they too could “join up.” Casual team formation like this is the most convenient and flexible way to gain the benefits of swimming with other people. You can even get some impromptu coaching, since workout mates are always happy to watch you stroke or drill. Just tell them what you’re practicing and what to look for, preferably underwater through goggles.

JOINING MASTERS SWIMMING

Don’t be put off by the word Masters. It doesn’t mean what you may think, as I’ll explain in a moment.

Joining a Masters team, in fact, is probably the best way to swim with friends of all abilities and make new ones. You’ll also have a coach to plan your workouts and help you improve your stroke, though there’s a wide range of professionalism, energy, and attention levels among Masters coaches. Some seem to have a gift for making every practice better than the one before. Others are little more than lifeguards. You won’t know until you try, though asking members before you join usually produces reliable opinions. You do lose some flexibility in scheduling your swim with a Masters group, but you can always practice with the team when it’s convenient, and on your own when it’s not.

Above all, know that “Masters” is not a code word for “serious” or “elite.” A tiny percentage of Masters swimmers fit that description, but most probably swim just like you do—or they did until they joined a Masters team and jump-started their progress. In fact, only a third of Masters swimmers compete. Most join with no intention of ever racing. They’re strictly fitness and recreational swimmers who love the sport, want to meet other people who do too, and are looking for coaching to help them along.

It’s a personal and personable organization. For though U.S. Masters Swimming is the national administrative body, the grassroots foundation—all most swimmers ever see anyway—are the fifty Local Masters Swim Committees (LMSC) that oversee Masters swimming groups in their areas. The LMSCs handle registration, organize and sanction meets, maintain regular communications with their members, and often have social activities as well. The national office coordinates among the LMSCs, organizes National and Postal meets (see box), and provides insurance for all members. For more information on U.S. Masters Swimming, visit www.usms.org where you’ll find a link for for your area’s LMSC and a directory of places to swim all over the country.

Masters groups run the gamut from loose and informal to highly structured. Most groups include swimmers of both kinds and many in between, all swimming happily under the same roof. In one or two lanes, you’ll find former competitive swimmers who train intensely, whether for meets or for fitness. In the intermediate lanes, swimmers who came to the sport a little later, and who suit up for the occasional Masters meet (plus triathletes who are usually quite competitive but less experienced as swimmers). And in the rest, fitness swimmers who joined mainly for coaching pointers and camaraderie. If your skills are sound (i.e., you can consistently swim an average of twenty strokes per length), you will almost certainly find a lane that suits you.

Larger teams usually offer more practices and more coaches. Smaller groups may offer fewer practices and less experienced coaches, but more opportunity for one-on-one advice. And one thing most have in common—a life outside the pool. Masters teams tend to be quite social. In the end, you’ll probably choose the group that offers the most convenient practice location and schedule.

RULES OF THE ROAD IN THE POOL

Pools are not like parks. You can’t just throw a bunch of athletes in and let them work out any way they please. Space is too tight, lanes are too confining. So swimmers observe an unspoken but certainly not unofficial etiquette that is not only polite but practical, fitting in as many people as possible, doing the workouts they need safely, smoothly, and without collisions.

The sooner you know the rules, the better you’ll fit in wherever you find yourself swimming. Fortunately, just like the rules of the road for cars, the conventions in pools are pretty similar all over the United States, which means you should be able to fit in smoothly anywhere. But just to be sure, check with the lifeguard at any unfamiliar pool. They may have invented something new there.

1. Picking your lane. In a busy pool, specific lanes are usually reserved for faster, moderate, and slower-speed swimmers, and are often identified by signs on the wall, deck, or starting block. Of course, those speed terms are relative. “Fast” could mean 1:00 per 100 yards in one pool, 1:30 in another. So your best bet is to eyeball each lane and pick the one that looks most like you. Worry about labels some other time.

If no directions are posted, then it’s kind of frontier justice: Possession is nine tenths of the law. Whoever’s already there sets the lane’s pace. If you’re faster than the pacesetters, back off. Today might be a good time to work on your stroke instead of your speed.

You’ll certainly be swimming more slowly during the first five or ten minutes as you warm up, so you may want to start in a slower lane, then switch to a faster one later. Or, if you’ve been swimming for a while and decide to do a kicking set which will slow you down, it makes sense to switch lanes.

2. Getting in. Rule one: No diving. Ever. It’s not safe, and even if you happen to think it is, the pool’s insurance company disagrees. Lower yourself down gently, feet first, anywhere lap swimming is going on.

Then, don’t just barge in. You’ll be sharing tight space with strangers, and pushing off whenever you feel like it is no way to show goodwill and cooperation. If someone is obviously in the middle of a long swim and won’t be stopping anytime soon, slip into the pool and stand to the side of the lane for a minute or so, allowing them see you before you start. And never push off immediately in front of or behind someone else. Allow at least five or ten seconds of cushion either way.

3. Navigating. If there’s just one other swimmer in the lane, you two can split it if you want, each taking a side. It’s first-come, first-served, so ask as you’re getting in whether your lane mate would prefer to “circle” or “split.” With three or more, there’s obviously no choice but to circle. So if you’ll be the third and the first two are splitting, slip in, stand to one side until they both notice you, and ask if they’d mind switching to a circle pattern.

Circling is nearly always counterclockwise—at least in countries where we drive on the right. In left-driving countries, I’ve found they swim the same way: clockwise. Think of the line on the bottom as the highway divider and stay to the right, as close to the lane rope as possible.

4. Passing. Sometimes, even with everyone in a lane supposedly moving along at the same clip, you’ll come steaming up on someone’s soles. To pass, tap him on the feet only once during the lap. When you reach the next wall, he’ll move right and you’ll pass on the left. If you are the “passee,” of course, yield by moving to the right at the next wall.

Don’t be stubborn when you’re doing intervals. It’s everyone’s pool, and to make that work you may have to be flexible enough to adjust your timing up or down to give other swimmers some space. Slower swimmer coming in toward the end of your interval countdown? Shave your rest a little and leave before they get there, instead of pushing off the instant they go by and immediately having to pass. If a faster swimmer’s coming in, extend your interval a few seconds so you push off behind them, rather than getting in their way.

Common sense and awareness will get you everywhere. If a swimmer behind you is coming up fast enough to catch you on the next length, don’t even wait until she taps your feet. Stop at the next wall and let her by. Good manners are always appreciated. And almost always reciprocated.

5. Resting. To take a breather, squeeze into the right-side corner (your right as you swim toward the wall). To take a long breather, more than a couple of minutes, sit on the deck completely out of the way.

So much for the actual swimming part. On the deck: (1) Never loiter in front of the pace clock. After all, people can’t read through you. And (2) Don’t borrow the equipment sitting at the end of the lane without asking, even if it looks like it’s not being used.