26 September 2026 I knew I was going to see Maia down at the K2 Crawley SCM meet the last weekend in September because I love racing the individual events session and her Brighton & Hove masters team seems to always come up for the evening relay-only session. With me swimming the 400 IM and 200 backstroke in the afternoon individual session and the relays starting after that, I had expected to be able to say hi, hang a bit and watch a few of her swims. What I didn't know un

13 September 2026 Getting “racing reps” in, at least for me, is critical to eventually swimming fast at a peak meet. I get to try out different strategies, extend myself to do different things than I normally do in a workout. As well, no matter how hard I try, I can never summon the same level of energy and commitment in a workout that I can in a competition, so racing is also a great way to push my limits. Plus, I just love to race. This quote from Australian great Lani

12 September 2026 I have had the good fortune of sharing a number of my pool tourist explorations with all of my daughters, my siblings, father and, on one occasion, a swimmer niece. But I have had more of these shared experiences with Maia, my oldest daughter, than anyone else. She’s always game for a trip and a swim, still taking that advice that her maternal grandfather gave her before she went off to university in Vancouver, “Say yes to everything!” Maybe not the safest

6 September 2026 My memories of Bracknell go back 20 years ... but not for swimming. In the summer of 2006, I was building the European arm of the first analytics startup I had become involved with a few years earlier. I had built my fledgling team in Theale to maybe 4 or 5 people. We were the scrappy startup division inside a scrappy startup company (HQd in the USA). Over that summer and into the early fall, we engineered a deal with a client HQd in Bracknell that more th

6 September 2026 After a Saturday night swim (#821) at the University of Surrey, I started off my Sunday morning with what would become a three-pool day and a four-pool weekend at the iconic Guildford Lido (#822) ... This nearly 100 year-old facility lived up to all the love and hype I've seen online. It routinely appears on online lists of the best lidos (such as this one from Time Out), but I have also had many of my fellow pool tourists tout this pool on Instagram in thei

5 September 2026 I had signed up for tomorrow's Berks & South Bucks County Masters meet awhile back (as I do), both to swim in the Bracknell Leisure Centre pool and to get some "racing reps" in. I entered before I figured out the travel logistics to arrive in time for the "day of event" confirmation (check-in by 9:15am) Then, a number of weeks ago, I saw the 3 bus - 1 tube - 1 train approximately three-hour journey that would have required me to leave home at 5:30am ... and

29 August 2026 It's been a relaxing week since I swam the 400 IM at the European Masters Championships in Slovakia, but recovery time is over because the Swim England Masters Championships kick off in eight weeks at the excellent Ponds Forge International Sports Centre: Reflecting back on the summer of training and racing, I had three big lessons: Vacation after the event - My wife and I had a great holiday, sandwiching in the 2/3 days of racing in Bratislava between 3 days i

23 August 2026 My 1,001 pool quest originally started from a desire to get and stay healthy after a period of intense work and business travel while building a startup tech company between mid-2002 and 2007. After the sale of that company later in 2007, I realized I had let my work consume me ... and let my nascent masters swimming career (begun in 2001) and attention to fitness fall far too low in my priorities. It's not like my work life got a lot less intense after I sta

28 July 2026 I had written a post last fall after I was particularly chuffed with my race execution and splits on a 200 fly I swam at Millfield School, where my 50 splits as a percentage of total time worked out to: 22.9% 25.8% 25.7% 25.5% I was reminded of how beautiful a perfectly executed 200 fly can be as I watched Lewis Clareburt control his pace, be comfortable in his strategy, bide his time and appear to storm home the last 50 to win the 200 fly at last night's Comm

27 July 2026 It's around this mid-year mark that Masters swimmers get to see how we fared around the world, with World Aquatics' annual publication of the global Top 10 performances by age group, by event and for both Short (SCM) and Long (SCM) course. It's always an interesting time: Who aged up - into or out of the age group? Who got focused and laid down some great swims? Who came back to the sport or came out of the woodwork? As another year went by, did we "slow down s