Corona no longer determines life, the technology has been renovated, the personnel problems have been solved: Now there is again morning swimming in the Weilheim indoor pool, which is particularly popular with seniors - for the time being once a week.
Weilheim
– It's dark, wet, cold and windy outside.
You really don't want to step outside the front door.
But seven women and men set out anyway to finally swim their lengths in the indoor pool on Jahnstrasse early in the morning or just let themselves drift in the swimming belt.
"I'm always happy when I step into the cold water," Alfons Vogler from Peißenberg remembers earlier times, when he regularly came for a morning swim once or twice a week.
He thinks it's "just great" that he can go to the bathroom in the morning again.
He came at 6:30 a.m.
We go swimming before work
Elfriede Desch was there even earlier, at exactly 5.58 a.m. – as the first.
For her, swimming at this time is the “pick-me-up and freshness kick par excellence”.
She uses the time before she has to go to work.
In the past, when morning swims were offered more often, she almost always came to the indoor pool.
Margit Egger is also "very happy" that the long-standing tradition has been resumed: She lives in Eberfing and makes a stopover to swim on the way to work: "That's ideal for me." She was one of the indoor pool guests who after the abolition of morning swimming and the temporary closure of the pool in the district office "complained", as she says.
Many asked that morning swims be resumed
Matthias Brugger does not necessarily want to name the letters and calls as complaints: "Many of them asked us above all to resume the morning swim." The deputy district treasurer, whose area also includes the municipal building and property management, had come to the bathroom to take care of himself to take a picture of the start of morning swimming again after a break of one and a half years: "In any case, more citizens have contacted us than are there at the start today."
The main factor for the district is the schools as a basic service: "But you're happy to take the morning swim with you." Because the two employees Stefan Heeg, a specialist for pool operations, and lifeguard Gerfried Lefler are there in the morning anyway before the school swimming sport every weekday, which starts between 7.45 and 8 a.m. in the bathroom.
Also read: That's what top swimmers from the region say about the indoor pool in Weilheim
Traute Hienz, on the other hand, has to come to the cash register for the early shift, because that's not manned during school swimming: "But that doesn't bother me.
I'm an early riser," says the woman from Weilheim, who warmly greets all morning swimmers: "They're all regulars." You can tell that by the fact that everyone has ten-tickets.
Like Thomas Aumiller, who has been coming to the bathroom for 20 years: If he can't go swimming in the morning, then he goes in the morning or afternoon.
That's important to him.
"I didn't expect it to happen again"
"It's wonderful that it's working again.
I didn't expect that to happen again," says Gerhard Leuchtenmüller to the cashier.
He is alluding to the rumors that the indoor pool may be completely closed: "That would be a heavy blow, especially for seniors and children," says Leuchtenmüller, who only needs a three-minute walk from home to the pool.
"I regularly go to the swimming pool with my grandchildren."
Vice-treasurer Brugger later made it clear in the room of the two "lifeguards" that after the renovation and the end of the staff shortage there was no reason to worry about the future of the indoor pool.
In the room with a view of the two pools, Brugger, Heeg and Lefler are quite satisfied with the visit: there are seven early swimmers, at the best times there were around 15. That means: half came on the first day of the resumption of the morning swim.
Heeg: "If word gets around again, we might even have 20 bathers in the early morning."
Swimming starts at 6:30 a.m. every Thursday
At least for the time being, early risers will be able to swim their lanes every Thursday from 6.30 a.m. to 7.45 a.m.
Only on the first Thursday did the operation begin at 6 a.m. because the wrong times had been published due to a breakdown between the district office and the media.
The bathroom reacted flexibly so that nobody had to stand in front of closed doors at the start.
Also read: Body, psyche and finances in balance: The adult education center in Weilheim is now focusing on this
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