Today when I was in the pool, another person came into my lane. Now, normally I have zero problem with this, as long as the person can observe simple rules, sticking to the right side of the lane, and giving way to the faster swimmer, then there shouldn’t be a problem. But when people break this rule, i.e. by not timing the swim so that the faster swimmer has to wait for the slower swimmer to make a turn before they can even have a chance at overtaking them, then we have a problem. And that’s what happened today.

Granted, the person would have seen me warming up, when I was swimming relatively slowly, but after the first time I overtook them, they probably should have either changed lanes, or rethought their timing. They didn’t, and I ended up having to stop in the middle of the lane more than once (which is strictly not allowed by the way, but I had no choice). So my times got messed up a bit, but instead of stopping and complaining, I sucked it up and thought about during triathlons when this sort of thing is a given, and I gave myself a challenge of still beating the set time, which I was able to do.

If that person hadn’t gotten into my lane, I wouldn’t have known how to act when I was all flustered, so I think of this as a good opportunity to see how well I could respond to less than ideal circumstances.