July 14, 2024
I think I lost any Canadian street cred I might have had when I walked onto the deck of the Parliament Hill Fields Lido in my "Toronto Swim Club" t-shirt and then proceeded to be, I think, the only swimmer wearing a wetsuit!
I'm a complete cold-water wimp and just shiver below 70F / 21C. As I had planned to be in the water for about 90 minutes on Sunday morning, I just couldn't see a way to do this without my sleeveless, ancient (easily 15 years old) XTerra wetsuit. I had no shame, though, and just swam away, enjoying myself over a 6,100 meter swim:
I had been here back on Boxing Day 2023, when my daughters and I did our Polar Bear jump. The water was 9C/48F back then, so I came nowhere near my minimum requirement of swimming 1,001 meters to add the pool to my list. Thankfully, I easily surpassed that threshold, making it pool #689 on my #1001Pools quest.
Other than the lack of a heater, this pool is a fabulous gift to the people of London. Though there are no lane lines on the bottom, the 90 foot width made for four "double-wide" lanes. They had three setup for slow, medium and fast swimming, each with enough room to pass people up the middle. The last double-wide, shown closest in the picture on the right above had a width-wise lane rope to split the shallow end from the deep-end. The shallow-end then had a small slide for the children to use.
I wasn't all that thrilled with the shallowness of the shallow end - my gorilla arms would touch the bottom when swimming freestyle normally, so I had to alter my stroke more than I would like. This means I don't see myself using this as a training pool going forward. For Sunday, though, I did 5 x 1,220 meters with about 30-60 seconds rest in between each. The pool is 200 feet (~61 meters) long, so this did make for exactly the kind of long swim I wanted (minus the altered stroke).
Like a number of Lidos around Londo, this 86 year old pool has a long and storied history, with heydays and threats of closure over the years. Thankfully, there was a multi-million pound renovation and re-commitment about twenty years ago. Judging by the massive number of people swimming and many more sunning themselves / chatting / reading on the deck, this is a well-loved and appreciated pool.
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