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

25 March 2026 Mainz, Germany really is a wonderful city, nestled on the south side of the Rhine River, due south of Weisbaden and southwest of Frankfurt, this burg of about 225,000 people has everything I need for a productive business trip: an easily accessible main train station with decent hotels and reasonably priced (but good) restaurants in walking distance and two great public pools. Until today, I've always swum at the Taubertsberg Bad as it's an easy 5-10 minute wal

22 March 2026 The organisers of the (gala name aside) excellent " Derbyshire Open Masters Championships" missed a brilliant branding opportunity to name this the "2026 Swimming Derby in Derby." Held at the most(ly) excellent Moorways Sports Village (now pool 779)... (click to enlarge pictures) ... this one day event afforded me the opportunity to finally get in my first racing of 2026, and to have a bit of a short weekend getaway with my wife. Thanks to a couple of health "

28 February 2026 Given the massive sun exposure I’ve had over my life, from swimming & lifeguarding as I grew up, to a quarter of century living between Texas and Arizona, it’s a bit surprising I haven’t had more “suspicious growths” … but, over the years of periodic skin checks, I’ve been remarkably problem-free. Which makes me inexperienced when it comes to what happens when the dermatologist does remove something for further investigation. Which means I wasn’t aware

22 February 2026 The sun set long ago on calendar year 2025, but a busy start to 2026 ... and time for reflection ... has delayed my "So what did I learn from all my training and racing in 2025?" post. So what did I learn from all my training and racing in 2025? Much of this is about re-learning old lessons, as I'm an inveterate forgetter. Race early, race often After much of my 2024 training being oriented towards endurance for completing the Lake Windermere end-to-end swim

1 February 2026 I tackled the easiest question - where geographically did I swim in 2025? - in my last post and I'm punting the hard thinking - what did I learn from 2025? - for my third post, but this one's not that easy either. I swam in 77 different pools in 2025 and two bodies of water ( off the coast of Crete and near Zug ): what were my favorite pools of 2025? One way to answer this is by understanding where I kept going back to, again, and again, and again. There'

20 January 2026 I'm not into numerology, so I wouldn't call this angelic , but, if I had young kids** and lived in Camden, I'd bring them here: With a gently sloping beach entry and very fun-looking water slide (closed during Fitness Swimming time), this is probably a great place for families. It's not the place for serious swim workouts, though it was better than I anticipated given some of the online comments I had seen. There were three lanes with proper lane ropes as yo

11 January 2026 " It was not true that travel was a false god and that you took your troubles with you and nothing could change. There was the unimaginable and unforeseen thrill of being away, of renewal, and remembering that the world was huge and various, and you and your concerns were small.” => Ian McEwan, What We Can Know I will hold myself forward as world-class in appreciating the unimaginable and unforeseen thrill of being away. I got my first passport as I neared g

30 December 2025 I ended 2025 the way I spent the year: racing! After discovering the uncrowded, super-clean and well-maintained 25-yard pool at the Ron Edwards YMCA in Burlington, Ontario, I decided to use this pool for this year’s entry into the MEMO Swim Team’s 400 Kick-For-Time . I paired a Christmas gift – a new FINIS Swim Fuse entry level tech suit (more on this below) – with their Smart Goggles to time this late morning on the 30 th . I had one of the lanes in the d

16 December 2025 I don't think I've ever been more surprised by a city than I was by Warsaw. Admittedly, I had done very little reconnaissance ahead of this trip so my pre-conceived notions of Poland were overly-influenced by memories from letters from a friend of mine who worked here in the post-Solidarity, re-opening to the "west" days of the early 1990s. Letters which painted an expectant and hopeful society, but bleak skies and an even bleaker infrastructure. I fully r