Over my brief career as a keen doggy paddler, I have made some observations about swimming that constantly remind me of motorway driving.
When driving my car (my beautiful, bright green Mazda 2), I actually get treated quite well on the roads, especially compared to when I drive my mum's old Yaris, or even my old Micra (oh, Robbie, I do miss you). But, of course, with every road comes an arsehole, and the longer the road, the more plentiful the arseholery. In my experience, the arseholes and usually men, and more often than that, they drive BMWs or Audis.
I try to be as considerate as possible when I drive, particularly on motorways. I don't drive up people's butts and flash my lights, I move out the way when possible and I never undertake. I always assume the worst, assume the person in front is a new driver, has a baby on board or perhaps is overtired or having a bad day. When you don't know the other person, you should be as considerate as possible because, I don't know about you, but I like to avoid making other peoples' days worse.
Now, I am a confident driver, but when people get up my backside it intimidates me and I worry I'll end up crushed into a pulp. It makes me nervous and I probably concentrate more on what might happen behind me than what is happening in front of me, which obviously isn't safe.
So now I've painted the picture, let's get back to my point.
I get this exact same feeling when I am swimming. I am not good at swimming. Before about 6 months ago, I was terrified of swimming. I hadn't swum since I was about 12 and the idea of taking my glasses off and wandering off somewhere was terrifying. However, I conquered my fear and found I actually really enjoy swimming. I don't think I'll ever been good at it, but I like it and it's good for my shoulder. I always go in the slow lane, because the speeds are relative and I will always be slower than everyone else there. Except one time at Runnymede when I was faster than the other woman in the pool, so I considerately moved to the medium lane. That was a good day.
So why do others not pay the say courtesy? You don't know how long I've been swimming, if I'm injured or tired. I'm in the slow lane because I am swimming slowly and I don't appreciate people swimming up my arse or, worse still, OVERTAKING ME. Seriously, it does nothing for my already battered swimming confidence. There is no speed limit in this lane, if you think you are slow, but can swim faster than those in the slow lane, you need to move into the medium lane. There's no "Slower" lane. If there was, none of this would be a problem.
Today it was actually a woman that did it to me, but every other time it has been a man. Every time.
Now, this isn't a feminist rant. I'm not saying that man, with his phallic-shaped, half-naked body is jumping into and penetrating a metaphorical big wet yonic vagina pool and defeminising me, using his superior swimming technique to demean myself and therefore all womankind (although that would make one heck of an essay). I just think it shows a basic difference between the mentality of lots of men and lots of women. And that is just a general awareness of what is happening around you, and how your actions affect others.
Like I said, today it was a woman intimidating me and swimming up my arse. But as I rested at the shallow end of the pool (if you know Virgin's pool you will be thinking "wow how mysterious is this?!" as both ends of the pool are actually shallow ends. Shall I reveal which end I was at? NO! Ooooh, ambiguity), a man jumped into the lane next to me and splashed me. I wasn't moving, it was clear I was there, and I ended up with chlorine in my eyes.
I don't think the man did it to spite me, or to show how big and tough he was, I just genuinely think he didn't think. It wasn't "Oh jumping with cause a splash that might get in that lady's eyes, which isn't really very fair", it was "Time to swim, get in the pool, JUMP!"
So perhaps really, overtaking in swimming lanes, and possibly on motorways isn't a big macho act of masculinity, but is just simply a lack of consideration that men seem to possess more than women, in my experience.
It's amazing where your mind goes sometimes. Thinking about this distracted me and I actually swam 30 lengths in 30 minutes, which is a new personal best for me. Maybe there's hope for a permanent place in the medium lane yet!
Swimming gets 8/10 today.
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