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

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

9 June 2026 This is a facility that I've wanted to visit for years ... really for decades, probably going back to my freshman year at the University of Texas when I first met Spencer Martin: J. Spencer Martin circa 1987/1988 Spencer was a year ahead of me and he took many of us first-year members of the men's swimming team under his wing. Though he and I never actually trained together - he was a breaststroker and sprint IMer, me stuck over in the distance lanes - he taught

7 June 2026 I first swam at Burlington's renovated Mountainside Pool (#607) just about three weeks after the multi-million dollar revamp was finished (ribbon cutting was June 30th, 2023) and absolutely loved the three long course lanes, but it was more fun and special to go there this June with Monica, about a week after her wedding and the last full day I had in Ontario this year: My wife and I had started considering Burlington as a future long-term hometown back during the

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

25 April 2026 When I was mapping out my ambitious return to racing during my "dry days" in January and February, I found a perfect pair of bookend competitions to an "events as high quality workouts" period, with lineups as mirror-images: March 21st's Derbyshire Open Masters Championships April 25th's Bracknell-Wokingham Swim Club's National Qualifier meet Five weeks apart, both in a long course pool without a separate warmup/cool-down pool (for maximum lactate-joy), and both

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 "

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

13 September 2025 - Tiranë After swimming the turquoise seas of the vibey beach paradise of Ksamil , where white-sand coves and clear...

9 August 2025 After I finished my first 400 LCM free of 2025, back at the K2 Crawley meet in mid-January , I wrote ... I still think I...