Michael Phelps Pilgrimage Swim (Pools #802 and #803)

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 ...

• Baby Phelps interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4UUnllzG_c

• Phelps swimming in the outdoor pool - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKxS4Dbudbo&t=52s

• Phelps at the indoor pool - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1jsrsfpglk

... but its approximate 35 year history (1986 to 2021) as a training site for North Baltimore Aquatic Club means many other world-class swimmers passed through these hallowed waters - the likes of Anita Nall, Beth Botsford, Katie Hoff, Allison Schmitt, Becca Mann, Chase Kalisz and so many more.

Though NBAC didn't purchase this pool until 1987, after I had moved away from Virginia to Texas, the club and their competitions featured heavily in my age group through high school years. Very often, when our coaches in Richmond wanted to expose us to competition from outside of the state, we would head to an NBAC meet. Their central location meant that we'd get to race not only against the elite guys from the DC/Baltimore/Northern Virginia area, but often fast teams from Philly and New Jersey would come down. NBAC's Christmas meet, held those days at Towson State University was perenially on our calendar.

I had to be in Connecticut and New Jersey for work through Thursday, but then had managed to coordinate my time in the USA with my brother's wife so we could get most of our family together for an overdue celebration of his 50th birthday party down in Charlottesville (he had gone to UVA) starting Friday evening. Rather than bother with flights, I just drove, stopping along the way at a few rest stops to take required work calls, but timing these strategically so I could stop into Meadowbrook for about an hour.

I need to give a big shoutout to John Cadigan, the general manager of the pool and himself a longtime coach with NBAC back to the early 1980s. The facility is now part of the Coppermine health club network and didn't appear to have a drop-in pass option. I wrote to John, explained my history and my goofy #1001Pools goal. Like has happened so many times when I've tried to get into other "closed" facilities and been helped through the kindness of aquatic strangers, John responded so kindly, offering to host me as his guest, give me a tour and talk about the history of the pool. What was fun beyond all of that, was talking about some shared names from my swimming past, more coaches than swimmers, as John was a contemporary of my coaches Terry Laughlin and Doug Fonder, but also knew of greats like John Flanagan. Good memories.

As for the pools, the outdoor 10-lane, 50 meter pool dates back almost 100 years to 1930. No fancy modern tank this one; it's an old school concrete shell, possibly the original infrastructure ...

... but where they have modernized is by putting in a bulkead to split the pool into a set of short course yards lanes alongside the remaining long course meters lanes. I practically had the entire short course section to myself and rolled through a long version of my standard warmup sets, with the digital pace clocks that were setup by the entrance to the indoor pool easily visible.

With the outdoor pool as #802, I then went indoors to do my main set of harder, aerobic 200s to make that pool #803. Indoors, they also made good use of bulkheads to split the pool up, but did so to create the two center lanes as long course:

I shared one of the lanes with only one other person and we just split the lane, each taking a side. I loved my swim and was glad I warmed up short before going long. The only slight challenge was as I swam by the bulkhead (I was on the right edge of the rightside long course lane in the picture above): I had to ensure I didn't swing my arm wide on the recovery or else I would have whacked the bulkhead.

What these pools lacked in fanciness, they made up for with function. With so many lanes and options, I can imagine this facility offered NBAC great flexibility in training, allowing them to not only have their elites mix & match courses, but also to run multiple different training groups at the same time.

Thanks again, John, for welcoming me. It was an honour to be able to swim here, to soak up the memories of Olympians past (who trained here going all the way back to the pool's founding), and to bring back some of my own fond swimming memories from the 1980s in this region.