Pool Review: My Kind of Lifestyle (#744)

27 June 2025

I think more London area fitness facilities should adopt this term - “Lifestyle Club” - over the much more dominant “Leisure Centre.”

We want people to adopt a lifestyle of fitness, not a laze-about of leisure!

I was checking out a different co-working space today - on top of the Greenwich IKEA of all places - so, naturally, I trekked down early to grab a sunny swim at this great, 50 meter, heated lido.  Now pool #744 on my #1001Pools list. 

All props to the pool - flow-over gutters, heated but not hot, 8 lanes, a small pace clock that had a very bright orange second hand that was even visible from the far end, 2 meter depth at one end (in the foreground of both pool pics) which sloped up to, I think, about 0.8 meters: fine enough to swim, but shallow enough to “encourage” an early vertical forearm & high elbow catch!

I wasn’t feeling all that zippy after a sub-par night of sleep (work-stress/monkey-mind keeping me up well past midnight), but I managed 4,000 meters with a main ladder set that included 1,200 of ~90% effort aerobic free and 2 x 400 IMs.  Most notably, I actually swam the whole 100 fly full stroke on the second one (was swim-drill on the 1st 400 IM), something I almost never do.  

And, I emerged, as I always do after a swim: more energized, more equilibrium in my head.