To London

This weekend we were in London for a birthday party and I took the opportunity to visit London Fields Lido on the Saturday morning. There's a thought-provoking article here about the pool's place in the community and whether it represents the aspirations of most of the Hackney people. As a non-Londoner that's impossible for me to say but this weekend it was busy, the new facilities well-designed and the fee reasonable. Importantly their timetable is easy to understand and features plenty of lane-swimming opportunities, unlike many pools where 'just swimming' is ousted by aquarobics, school classes, over-95s only etc etc.

For me a 50m pool is hard work with each length being a little more effort than is comfortable. But with the water slightly chill the only option was to keep swimming, even with very brief pauses to catch my breath. In every lane there was a distinct drive to keep up the pace so no time to slacken. However swimmers were polite and tried not to push in front or chase unreasonably.

My pacing was poor, for some bilateral breathing single lengths I was below 2:15min/100m but after 1500m I couldn't achieve 2:30min/100m for a 100m set. Oh well, such is fatigue and hopefully some training effect ensues!

Of course I don't have any photos poolside so here's one from the Olympic park.

The slide looked 'interesting' but needed to be booked ahead