My swimming adventure

Unless you own the pool, you should try to accommodate other swimmers. Circle swimming isn't ideal, especially with a speed discrepancy and you doing different workouts, but it ensures everyone gets to work out. My thinking is, I pay the same membership dues as everyone else so I am going to swim. Sitting on the side is just wasting my time. I prefer to split lanes as well but it's not always feasible.

The only other option is to go at a less crowded time when the swim team is not practicing.

I don't understand splitting a lane.  Circling is just so much easier.  In addition, then there is no need to coordinate when someone else joins the lane.  Just let them know what to do and you're off.  No need to wait for the other swimmer to let them know to switch.

I thought about those things. The thing is that there were other lanes where people were not sharing or were doing similar workouts as to what the person ended up doing. When I go to the pool and it is crowded I attempt to look at what others are doing for their workouts and look at their speed and then try to join the appropriate lane rather than jumping in with people who are doing backstroke, breaststroke or whatever. 

And I did give the people asking the share a chance to talk to the other person in the lane with me. I wasn't totally opposed to it and would have made adjustments had the other person agreed as well as it is a shared pool. I just didn't feel that if the other person wasn't willing to circle swim then there wasn't a whole lot I could do about other than give up my part of the lane. 

X2 on this.........

This was my experience yesterday. I only had about 800 yards of my long set left to finish and went from splitting a lane to circling. We were all about the same pace, but I feel I was fading out at the end. This was my last 800yds of a 4000yd total swim, so I had to force myself to really push it, to keep up their pace. It exhausted me, but in the end I left feeling the circle swim technique gave me the extra push/motivation I needed to finish off a hard swim day.

I can't say that the other person refused to circle swim or not. I just told the person to talk to the other person in the lane. If the other person says no, not much I can do. Should I just wait at the wall until the person wanting in the pool gets the attention of the other person to see if circle swim will work? What happens then if that person just ignores the one wanting in the pool? How long am I to wait before continuing on my set? 

I'm all for sharing but if the other person in the lane doesn't want to share than am I suppose to give up my swimming so a person can start? I guess that is more what I am asking since I didn't say no to circle swim but felt that I couldn't speak to the whole lane myself. If it was just myself and a group came along I would have said yes to it. 

This is a touchy subject and I would rather make sure I am handling things right vs. not. I thought I was handling things right by telling the person wanting to join to ask the other and if alright with that person sure thing.

The other points I was getting at is there were other lanes with people doing the things the guy was wanting to do. Why not just join that lane? Sure they can join whatever lane they want but out of respect to others shouldn't they join a lane of similar type of swimming or speed?  

It originally sounded like the pool was packed and yours was the best lane for someone to join. If that is not the case, then you could be like oh see if you can jump into the next lane.

What I would have done in the case of a crowded pool is say sure, we can circle. Let's grab this other guy. I would stop him and say hey we're circling now. Especially if he's lapping you it shouldn't take him more than one minute to get to the wall.

Would I be annoyed if I was in the middle of a timed set or interval? Absolutely, but part of using a public pool is sharing and the occasional interruption.

Ok, that makes sense. I just have never grabbed someone in the middle of their set and didn't know if I should be the one to do it or is it up to the person wanting to join. The pool was crowded to a point but not necessarily crowded to the point that the lane that there were not other lanes splitting as well. 

There were others wanting to swim but they were just sitting there so who knows if they were really wanting to swim right then or were just waiting themselves so they could do their own thing. 

Anyways next time I'll just say that's fine we can swim circles, get the other person swimming to know you want to join and when I see that just start swimming circles.  

How wide is the lane? 3.5 feet? something like that and not everyone knows how to circle swim. Swimming in the pool is not swimming in the open water plain and simple. so basically if i have a workout and i need to hit my times , I shouldnt even bother when circle swimming with people who are not swimming around my pace?    Thank God my Gym does not allow circle swimming.

IDk sounds weird to me.    Just swim and get wet.