Race Report: Bracknell Double Shot (#823 & #824)
6 September 2026
My memories of Bracknell go back 20 years ... but not for swimming. In the summer of 2006, I was building the European arm of the first analytics startup I had become involved with a few years earlier. I had built my fledgling team in Theale to maybe 4 or 5 people. We were the scrappy startup division inside a scrappy startup company (HQd in the USA). Over that summer and into the early fall, we engineered a deal with a client HQd in Bracknell that more than doubled the size of our team, expanded our work across Europe and opened paths into Japan.
The time period from late 2003 through 2007 had me consumed with work, featuring a huge amount of global travel, as I was managing (personally or through my team) almost all clients that required someone from New Jersey to get on a plane to go to. In particular, the summer of 2005 was crazy, with me shuttling from my home in Arizona to Japan, Belgium, London, New Jersey, California, Indianapolis and Chicago, and likely other places I have forgotten about.
It was an exciting time work-wise, but a time of far less swimming than I do these days. That manic '05 summer was what caused me to start building a team near London. My work life not slowing down and my fitness & swimming suffering over the next two years was the impetus for me to start my #1001Pools quest after I turned 40.
The Bracknell Leisure Centre, dating to the late 1960s and early 1970s, existed then, but, while I recall a swim or two with the Reading Masters Club at the old Reading Central pool, I never made the time to swim in Bracknell until this year.
I definitely made up for lost time and missed pools over the September 5th-6th weekend, with my Saturday night swim at the Surrey Sports Park and my Sunday morning "first warmup" at the Guildford Lido, before nabbing both of Bracknell's pools - the warmup/training (#823) and the main competition pool (#824) during the Berks & South Bucks Open Masters 2026 meet ...
Training/Warmup Pool and Commemoration Plaque
With no disrespect to the great Roger Bannister, it would seem that having a great British swimmer to commemorate the pools would have been more fitting. Maybe had the pools been opened a few years later, they would have chosen David Wilkie following his 1976 Montreal gold.
History aside, the competition pool (#824) was actually a more decent pool to race in than I had originally suspected. While not fancy and only six relatively narrow lanes, the deep end was 3.0 meters and the shallow end 1.25 meters, making for better racing conditions than I imagined looking at it from the pool deck. Combined with the always available training pool for cool-downs and warmups, it was actually a great location for an in-season meet.
The competition pool
50 Free
Masters Best – 25.79 (2008, age 41)
50+ Best – 26.37 (2025, age 58, Swim England Nationals)
Result - 26.71
Reaction -
I was incredibly pleased with just about everything in this swim. Outside of taper/rested meets, I have gone between 27.37 and 28.23 during this last decade, so this was my first sub-27 swim during an in-season meet.
It wasn't perfect - I was still a bit too deep on the start and the turn, but it was a solid swim and the exact "rev-up/warmup race" I needed before my 200 IM.
200 IM
Masters Best – 2:16.10 (2011, age 44)
50+ Best – 2:22.17 (2022, age 55, Canadian Masters Nationals)
Result - 2:25.33
Reaction -
I haven't swum this as event that much since moving to London; this was only my 5th time doing so, but this was much faster than the two recent 2:27s from last year. Like the 50, it represents a strong in-season swim for me and I was still a bit tentative on the breaststroke kick given my torn meniscus.
100 free
Masters Best – 55.72 (2010, age 43)
50+ Best – 59.33 (2019, age 52, Masters Swimming of Ontario Champs)
Result - 59.17
Reaction -
While this was a marked improvement over the 59.89 to 1:01.44 efforts I have put up over the last three years, I had hoped that my speed in the 50 would have carried me to a 58+ swim. It didn't, but this is still a new "50+ Best"
800 Free
Masters Best – 8:57.63 (2011, age 44)
50+ Best – 9:17.18 (2025, age 58, Swim Ontario Provincials)
Result - 9:26.06
Reaction -
Although this time was within the 9:23.19 to 9:28.24 range over the last four times I have swum this in the last three years (excluding the 50+ Best referenced above), I was happiest with this swim this day, because of my solid execution of my race strategy, my locked-in splits and the fact I felt like I had more to give at the end.
I went 300 at 12-13 SPL, 200 at 14 SPL, 200 at 15 SPL and then I just let it rip the last 100 resulting in these splits below or 200s at 2:20.2 / 2:22.5 /2:23.4 / 2:20.0
I did have some good 'conversations' with 'CoachGPT' afterwards and there were a few nuggets for me to consider:
As I had too much left and as my slowest point was in that 450-600 range, where I wasn't consciously trying to pick it up too much, I need to be more focused in that part of the race and probably look to my next to last gear as early as the 400.
Increasing my SPL didn't result in faster times ... which probably means I got sloppier as I tried to increase the tempo. I need to pay more attention to my stroke mechanics as I try to go faster.
I won't get to swim another 800 this calendar year, but these learnings are very good to apply to my 400 at Sheffield at the end of October.
