Pool Review & Racing Prep: Acton Centre (#732)

18 April 2025

My original racing plan for 2025 did not include tapering and shaving for the Ontario Provincial Championships. Racing in Canada wasn't on my mind until a business trip back to spend time with the team I manage in Toronto aligned itself for the week after Easter. Even then, knowing how exhausting these trips can be, I entered the competition with an eye towards just getting in more "racing reps."

However, after feeling speedy on some of my races last weekend, I decided to start resting on Monday and then made an agreement with myself that, if I performed well enough on my Heart Rate Test Set on Friday, I would commit to a full taper and shave.

The only possible monkey wrench in this plan was that I had long ago planned to check out a new pool (for me) at Acton Centre ahead of spending the afternoon at the special Versailles: Science & Splendour exhibit at the London Science Museum.

While the pool looked like it could be good and sufficient ...

... you really never know what kind of workout you'll be able to do in a public swimming session until you arrive and see the state of play: not the pool itself, but your fellow patrons.

Maybe I got lucky because it was Good Friday and with nice weather, maybe the Christians were praying or doing whatever it is they do on such a day and everyone else was out enjoying the sunshine that kicked off the four day weekend. Maybe it's because I showed up a bit before noon and everyone was already thinking about lunch. Whatever the reason, I shared one of the two fast lanes with at most one other (solid swimmer) person ... and ... if I was to be one to believe in miracles, this would be the time: I miraculously had the lane to myself precisely during the ~24 minutes of the Heart Rate set:

• 8 x 100: on 3:00

• Aim for effort at 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%, 100%, 90%, 80%, 70%

• Record heartrate at 0:10, 0:30, 1:00 intervals after each 100

• Record my time

I was using my Finis Smart Goggles to record my time and my Suunto watch to record my heartrate. While I understand that watches on wrists in water are not super-accurate, I have used this watch** before and had sensible results. The resulting Pulse Plot (compared back to shortly before the 2016 USMS SCY Nationals and the 2022 Canadian SCM Nationals) was a bit confusing ...

... because my heart rate just didn't increase as I got faster.

That's not likely reality, so I think there was something funky going on with my watch. But, what didn't lie was my speed: I got down to 1:04.8 and 1:05.0 on my two 100% efforts, which was spot on my 2022 speed and only about a second slower than my 2016 speed.

So, I walked away from this modern pool inside an old but updated and well-maintained facility thinking two things:

1. I'm gonna taper

2. If I had to move to Acton, I could be happy here

   
   

**and previously the Garmin Swim 2 before I left it behind at the National Swim Centre in Dublin, pool #612