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

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

18 July 2026 I really, really wanted to love the new Canary Wharf Sea Lanes. Maia came up from Brighton to spend the weekend in London with us ... and the timing was pretty perfect as it was almost three years ago to the day (July 9, 2023) that we had swum together in the "OG" Sea Lanes pool down in Brighton. We booked our swim for 3pm and had absolutely perfect conditions, with fairly skies and the water chilled, but not too chilled. The location is less than a ten minute

23 June 2026 I had written over nine years ago about the four Olympic pools in which I'd had the pleasure of swimming, but that post was a couple of years after I had swum in that fourth Olympic pool, the Peter Daland pool at the Uytengsu Aquatics Center on the University of Southern California campus in 2015 ... and that was pool #206 on my #1001pools list! It's taken me over a decade and 600 new pools tallied before I got to add my fifth Olympic pool, but the Olympia Schwim

12 June 2026 Some pools are iconic for their beauty, for their unique architecture, for the history of competitions held there. But there are also pools in the world that, while possibly having something to offer in & of their inherent pool-ness, are special because of who trained there, because of the excellence produced there. The Meadowbrook Swim Club on the outskirts of Baltimore is rightly famous as the childhood and young adult training ground of Michael Phelps ... Bab

10 May 2026 I’ve been too busy with work and life while trying to squeeze swimming into the former to writeup my racing and the great 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games pool, the Sandwell Aquatics Centre, which became pool #794 on my #1001Pools list. I was up there on Sunday, May 10th, for their first ever Masters meet and, other than a brief episode after my 200 freestyle, had a great day. I always love swimming in a “games legacy” pool, having enjoyed swimming in: Multip

4 May 2026 I asked ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini to describe Luton in three words. I got: Gritty. Transient. Unvarnished Industrial. Diverse. Connected. Gritty, underrated, unpretentious. I’ll take Underrated and Unpretentious (props to Anthropic) but, based upon only visiting the 2012-era, 8-lane, 50-meter, all deep competition pool at the Inspire: Luton Sports Village, I would add LOVELY. I have had this pool on my “London Pool Bucket List” for awhile, but it’s just far enough

18 April 2026 Just like last weekend , I lined up a full "Swimming Saturday" ... 3,200 meter morning Barnet Copthall masters team workout Gargantuan chicken caesar salad at the Silver Service Cafe for our team breakfast/brunch ... and then, starting from the end of the Northern Line at Mill Hill East, a tube, train and bus to head out to Swindon's Link Centre for an afternoon of racing This massive, if dated, facility has come to closest to reminding me of a Canadian commun

31 March 2026 As I wrapped up my 5,900 total meters in my second pool of the day to celebrate my birthday ... and then reflected on text messages with my swimming-father who was about to celebrate his 83rd birthday and who was resisting swimming my "gift" to him of a very creative 2,075-meter workout (e.g., 83 x 25) ... I came to the conclusion that I need to develop "Swimming Rule of 60" to guide future birthday swimming celebrations, completely stealing the idea from famous