Hello--
I will be vacationing for 2 weeks in both London, England and Dublin, Ireland leaving in 2 weeks and would like to swim at least a few times while I am away. I'm not sure what kinds of programs they have like masters swimming, but it would be great to drop into a program in either/both cities a few times. I know I've seen posts on here from swimmers in at least London....
* For London, I'll be staying at the Hilton Tower Bridge, on the south side of the Thames, between the London and Tower bridges.
* In Dublin, I'll be at the Conrad, just across the street from St Stephen's Green.
I've done a little online research, but thought I'd see if anyone on here has actually gone through and experienced it first-hand. I also plan to ask at the hotels in both cities.
Are there any special quirks I should know about before I go? For example, at one pool I went to in Tokyo, everyone had to wear a cap. I'm not a cap person, but wore one for the sake of swimming. They also nearly freaked out when I got out my paddles for drill work. From what I gather, they swim clockwise when circling, so opposite what we do here in the US.
I'd appreciate any input on pools and masters programs in both cities. Thanks!
Tim
Hi
In London I suggest that you look into Otter Swim Club
http://www.otterswimming.com/www.otterswimming.com/training.asp
They have training venues on your side of London. I suggest that you contact them for their drop in policies. It's a friendly all masters club which I used to belong to.
Good luck.
Hi there
I would go to Swimclub forum in UK and post your question there.
www.swimclub.co.uk
There are lots of masters on there and you should get a good response.
Hi
In London I suggest that you look into Otter Swim Club
http://www.otterswimming.com/www.otterswimming.com/training.asp
They have training venues on your side of London. I suggest that you contact them for their drop in policies. It's a friendly all masters club which I used to belong to.
Good luck.
Wow, thank you for the quick response. I was out of town for a work trip, but I just looked at their website and send the coaches an email to see if I could swim with them.
Thanks again for the information. I corresponded with someone from Otter Swimming prior to my trip, and ended up swimming 3 times with them. Twice at the Queen Mother Sports Centre and once at Guy's Hospital. It certainly helped break up the trip, and loosen up my legs after all the walking I was doing as a tourist. It was also a great way to meet some people, they are a very friendly group. When I got back last week, I wasn't too badly out of shape....
The workouts were very good, quite a bit of variety. The longest they did was a 200, but they did lots, and quite a bit of IM work. The workouts are 90 minutes (I'm used to an hour) and the extra 30 minutes really makes your muscles burn. Each workout I went to had a different coach, all were very nice and interested in helping a visitor.
If anyone will be in London and is interested, shoot me a PM or email and I'd be happy to share the details.
Oh, and they did alternate-lane circle swimming, 1 lane clockwise, the next counter, etc. Whenever I could I either went up or down a lane to avoid swimming the 'wrong' way, but at Guy's Hospital the pool only has 3 lanes and I ended up in the middle swimming clockwise, very tricky to do flip turns.
