The Rite of Spring

For the first time in 2012 it is now light enough for The Urban Swimmer to run through Regent's Park when he leaves his central London office at 5.30pm. Reinvigorated by the feeling that Spring is here, despite this week's cold spell, TUS decided it was time for a sojourn along the Lucinda River to pools new. It was thus with an intrepid mind that he set off on an odyssey to darkest Crouch End and The Park Road Leisure Centre.

Crouch End, other than sounding like a place straight out of Harry Potter, is the sort of North London neighbourhood that attracts a fierce loyalty. Somehow despite being a North Londoner, TUS has never ventured there. It was mostly dark by the time TUS got there, but it seemed like a nice enough place. Depending on how you travel The Park Road Leisure Centre is about a mile walk from the Archway or Highgate underground stations. In The Urban Swimmer's haste to complete his Spring odyssey he forgot to pack his swimming goggles. Consequently a lot of the following information may be entirely inaccurate, since most of it was conducted in a slightly red-eyed blur. He would also like to apologise to  any  of his fellow  swimmers who he may have carved up, slowed down, concussed or caused to crash/sink as a result of his temporary blindness. Thank goodness the task of TUS prevents him from returning too often to the scenes of his crimes!

Park Road is a virtual aquatic centre: there is whopping 50m lido open in the summer, a 25m standard pool, a small square kiddies training pool and get this, a small diving pool. The dive pool was closed off when TUS visited, but the sight alone of a springboard got him jolly excited. The centre has a rather 1970s/80s utilitarian feel to it, lots of tiled concrete and glass; and strange mirrored walls in a lot of the pool area. It costs about four quid for a swim; there is also a rather pleasant looking poolside sauna and steam-room which TUS will make a point of visiting next time he is there. The changing rooms are sizable but a bizarre labyrinth of men's, women's, family and group sections and private cubicles, with the lockers awkwardly  positioned away from where you change. The communal showers are warm but pretty pathetic; in the inner sanctum of the male changing area TUS found a few with slightly better pressure, but nothing great. There is a slightly comical passageway between the changing rooms and the main pool area where you have to walk through a series of water jets - you WILL shower before using the pool! TUS could not help but notice that there were also a number of cold water jets that could be activated with the press of a button - thus forcing anyone behind to be sprayed with cold water. TUS could not possibly publicly endorse such behaviour in his blog. He would however say that the word Frolic seems entirely appropriate for poolside behaviour, the word originates from 14th century dutch Vrolijk, and the dutch should know something about water given that much of it is technically below sea level.

Look mum, diving boards!

On the evening of his visit the pool had been split into four wide lanes; two of which were being used by the very enthusiastic yellow capped kids from the Haringey Aquatics Club, thrashing water to within an inch of it's life. This effectively meant that really only one lane was available for lane swimming; but the late-ish hour of his visit meant the pool wasn't horrifically busy.

Kid's pool

Since he was goggle-less,  TUS  used  much  of  his  time  to  practice  some  drills.  This  week  TUS  has  been  devouring Terry Laughlin's 1996 classic, Total  Immersion  Swimming.  Though the  book  is hardly new news, it will  appeal  to you if you like books like Moneyball; since it takes the line of argument that most of what you think you know about a given sport, what most practitioners in the field do, is in fact wrong. It's an idea that instinctively appeals to TUS because well, he's a difficult sod and he likes to question accepted wisdom.  Mostly though, what he has realised in the last few years that unlike most land bound sports, swimming is a sport where technical skill is far more important than fitness or physical prowess. You can see this if you go to your local pool at a moderately busy time, some swimmers cut through water like knives through butter, moving quickly with little splash; while other often more muscular "fitter" swimmers noisily churn water but only move quickly with huge bursts of energy.

TUS is still at the early stages of the book and drills but without going into great detail, he effectively re-builds your front crawl through a series of drills starting from paddling on your back. Consequently TUS can confirm that The Park Road Leisure Centre has a very nice ceiling.