Havenāt been for a swim in years
I have never learned how to swim another style than breaststroke. 
Considering that in Taiwan a lot of people donāt know how to swim at all, I can understand why the ones who barely know how to swim stick to the easiest style.
None of the swimmers in public pools own the pool, so I think respect should go both ways. Beginners in the beginnerās lanes, the pros in the prosā lanes etc. As a pro I would try to find pools where beginners donāt dare to swim, if those pools exist.
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It depends on how often you swim and how often you practice. My coach said my quick return to bilateral breathing was due to muscle memory. Although my left arm is still weaker than my right.
The best exercise to establish the muscle memory is head down kickboard drills with breathing (and arm stroke) to the side you donāt normally use.
You have to establish the muscle function otherwise youāll end up with cramps in your neck that will travel to your lower back. And these can be quite painful.
After kick board drill thereās hand paddles. They help develop the muscle strength in your shoulder, arm, and lats to make sure you have the pull through the water to complete the breath.
You might want to check how you breath by filming yourself swim towards the camera and getting someone to film side on and overhead. If you donāt have natural flow through the water, where you create a pocket of air between your eyes and shoulder youāll find it pretty hard going. My head barely comes out of the water on both sides. And it only took me about 3 weeks to go back to full bilateral breathing.
Best advice is go slowly because youāll be waking up old muscles.
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Weāre talking about the pool at äøę£éåäøåæ, right? I saw a guy there twerking (I think thats what itās called) looking at himself in the the mirror in the menās locker room. He had on his swimming suit. I yelled at him and told him to do that at home. He stopped right away.
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Thereās a test you have to pass before swimming in the 50m pool at Songshan. 1000m in 30 minutes. This is just very average, but at least this does weed out the older folks who are barely making any forward progress, swimmers doing backstroke at a leisurely pace, those trying unsuccessfully to swim butterfly, etc.
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I yelled at the guy in the pool from 4 lanes away. Was calling out to my kid. āWhatās that guy doing in the lane next to you?ā Then went and stood over the top of him. He swam down the other end to where the kids classes were and continued anyway. I told one of the swimming class teachers fairly discreetly. So they started keeping an eye out for him. It was after that he started making noise and using his guanxi.
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Huh. In the campus pool I use, I think that test would leave ā¦ only me? In the lunchtime slot, anyway. There is a school team that trains in the evenings and some of them are good.
Around 70% of the time Iāve got a lane to myself, anyway. But thereās certainly a general absence of etiquette. Zero concept of pausing at the wall if someone is quickly catching up to you; lots of breast stroke in the middle of the lane, which of course hinders passing and also can hit oncoming swimmers. At least now that itās cooled down most of the students have disappeared, so I donāt have dimwits standing beside each other at the end of the lane (or walking in the middle of it!), mouths gaping as someone who can actually, gasp swim, gets ever closer and would like to use the wall to turn, thank you very much.
With all this rain I think Iām one swim away from the most meters Iāve swum in a month this year. That is not a function of diligence or hard training. Itās a function of being unable to get on my bicycle. I miss sunshine.
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Did my first 1500m straight-through swim in forever today (according to my records I last did this in September 2008? No time from then, sadly, or perhaps fortunately). Today I got a time of 28:12, with a pace of 1ā52" for 100m: looks like splits ranged from 1ā43" (for the first 100m), pretty consistently around 1ā57" in the second half, and 1ā51" for the final. Um ā¦ Iām not sure how the Apple Watch is calculating that; those numbers donāt seem to make sense.
I have no idea how to pace myself for that. I was definitely too fast for the first 100m, but I should be able to maintain a slightly faster pace through most of it. I need to try that more often; most of the time Iām swimming 100m sets, so Iām pretty good at pacing those, but Iām too unfamiliar with other distances.
That pace is a fair bit slower than what I was doing almost two years ago, but it looks like that time I was pushing myself, and I finished today feeling like I hadnāt pushed myself enough.
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Thatās a very respectable time.
I like the 1500m distance precisely because itās very tricky as far as pacing goes (similar to the 5k run, in my opinion). You go out too fast and you can fall apart in the last 500m. Go too slow and you end up with a crappy time. Sometimes, just sometimes, you go out too fast and then you dig deep and find a way to keep yourself together for a good final time. Anyway, good job today.
After covid and another health issue that came up (whatās up with this year?!), I feel I started from the beginning again last Sunday.
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Dang, being called out on the internet hurts differently fo sho.
Iāve been back to swimming after quitting since I was a kid. Freestyle, breaststroke, and backstroke muscle memory came back quickly. Butterfly wise, I am an uncoordinated newborn calf flailing around. Really liking this exercise now that Iām in my 30ās and have dad obligations. I can get a quick, high-intensity workout in, get out, and get on with life.
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I think thatās just part of life post-40 or post-45: repeatedly making progress, needing to stop for some reason or another, and then trying to catch up on ground now lost. I had some kind of arm injury a couple of weeks ago: no idea where that came from. After a week or so it was gone, but after swimming yesterday, the arm started to feel a little sore again; ditto today, and I was very much aware of it while swimming.
Indeed - if the weather is agreeable, Iād rather go cycling, but boy swimming fits into a schedule so much more nicely.
I can certainly see the fun in that: itās a different kind of challenge. What Iāve enjoyed about doing more sets / intervals over the past year is that it pushes me to burn myself out now, and if Iām burnt out for later sets, eh, I donāt really care, because the whole point is to burn myself out, and if Iām exhausted, job well done! But 1500m is a whole different way to think.
I really need to get on more of a cycle: one swim with primarily 100m sets, next with 200m, next with 400m, next with 1000 or 1500m, and then back to 100m for the next one.
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Iām over the hill by comparison then. In my 50s. Iām always struggling with some injury or another.
Pacing takes time and practice. But 1500m is a good place to start. Mostly because once conditioned you should be able to really push yourself and get that 28 minutes down to high teens or low twenties.
Some people just canāt swim butterfly. Just like some people canāt swim backstroke. Donāt be too upset about it. Itās the most punishing stroke.
Iāve been trying to get my breathing rate back to normal. So underwater end to ends using either freestyle or dolphin kick.
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Ha ā¦ thanks for the encouragement, but looking back through the past couple of weeks, the fastest Iāve done recently for a 100m split is 1ā31ā, so if I by some miracle of physical improvement I managed to sustain that for 1500m, itād still be around 22ā45ā. To break 20 minutes ā¦ thatād be 1ā20ā for each 100m? Am I doing that math right? I wish I could remember my best race times back when I was on a swim team as a teenager (and not all that good at it!), but Iām guessing it was around that.
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Get yourself a tempo trainer. Set it for a pace you know you can do. Sit on that pace for about 6 weeks. Then take two or three days off and go flat out for a 1500m swim. You might surprise yourself.
After that swim increase the pace in the tempo trainer and do that until you feel relatively comfortable. Probably around 4-6 weeks. Try again. Your sprint pace should be almost the same as the first effort.
You keep doing this until that sprint pace sort of feels normal and you find a good training pace. You can also increase the frequency of the sprints to about twice a week. It should take about 6 months all up.
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Do you know where those are sold in Taipei?
Iāll take the scooter tonight and have a look. Canāt find it on Google maps but I know where it is.
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I went and had a look. I couldnāt find the place. Iāll check google maps again just to make sure. I know I took a screenshot of the address back then but that was an older phone.
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Thanks for all your effort. No problem if you canāt find the place. My biggest struggle at the moment is getting back into a swimming routine. Iām trying to accomplish that starting this week.
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Just piping in to say there are people who like to swim who are not doing swim-a-thons or planning a cross the sun moon lake swim
Itās ok !
You can just do a lazy swim any chance you get for keeping in overall health
Just stay out of the high speed lanes and try not to poop in the pool Especially do NOT do this
You have a right to exist too ( in the pools)
I go to a nice gym which has a 25m pool and three lanes only and most people try to respect others and keep the time in the lane to one at a time and 20 mins or so
Friends will use the same lane
There are busy times to avoid of course and itās obviously best to not go there during those times
But the pool can accommodate beginners and intermediate and even people who have to do their 1000 meters in one go
As long as everyone gives consideration to others
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No matter what sport Iām doing, I always enjoy seeing people who are beginners, overweight, old, etc. I think āgood for themā typically. And I believe many others have the same attitude. But the pool is a special place where good etiquette and following of the rules are absolutely required. A person doing a slow backstroke in the middle of the designated fast lane can ruin your swim, for example.
I usually have a good experience in the pool but there have been some unpleasant moments.
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