The last two Saturday’s I had decided to try and push myself and my back to see how it would take some further distance than the 2.5km I have been doing. However, to try and make it fun and break it up a bit and also to try and catch up a bit with the ‘Winter Pool Challenge’ it was decided to try a bit of a Pool Crawl.
Lots of Towels & Cozzies
Last Saturday saw Brian, Kerry & I hit Kings Hall, London Fields, York Hall & Mile End – we did 1km in each so a total of 4km and then this weekend Kerry & I headed off to swim at Cally Pool, Pancras Square, Marshall Street & Porchester (both the 30m and the 25m pools) equalling a total of 5km.
Organising the ‘pool crawls’ has been quite a feat, last Saturday we travelled between by car but this was all on the tube. The main thing has been trying to find times where there is some sort of lane swimming. Pools generally only have lane swimming very early or very late but on the whole we were lucky enough to have a lane to swim in without too many lane drama’s. Although funnily at Cally Pool Kerry and I had to swim in a large lane set aside as a club was training in the other 5 and whilst we swam our 1km we had to dodge two children having a lesson, 5 people doing their life saving course and picking the dummy off the bottom of the pool and a few random’s who I don’t think I can describe what they were doing as swimming.
As Kerry & I approached Porchester pool we saw this truck which had both a French & GB flag and a woman with a bottle of something – we saw this as a good omen for our swim.
GB to France
Every pool we have visited so far has its own character, some of them have featured marble floors, other with purple glitter panels to look at when you swim to some of the not so glamorous but it has been amazing to find pools that have been there for years some of which I have walked close by many times but never knew they were there including pools just behind Carnaby Street and St Pancras Station. It is also amazing how many pools have two pools within them of differing sizes to cater for people of all ages. Some of the pools from the outside have looked not very inviting but once in have been little pieces of heaven. We really are very lucky in London to have such choice from indoor pools to outdoor heated and non heated lidos to lakes and ponds.
Next Saturday I am off to Guildford Lido to see how my back will cope with the colder water. The water is currently only heated to 10 degrees (most indoor pools are heated to 28-32 degrees) so no long distances to be swam there just yet but a good chance to start acclimatising to the cold water ready for Dover down in May.
If you are keen to find out more about the pools we visited you can do so on a recent guest blog I wrote for Team Mermaids. You can find it here
My Swimming Tales 