Dawlish Leisure Centre

Two-part evening swim in Devon.

After an afternoon with the laptop on the sunny seafront in Torquay, I'm heading over to Dawlish tonight for an evening swim via the coast road, the sun is out - and still up, just about! the sight of the rolling green hills of Devon meeting the sea, lovely!

Feeling tired tonight. It's my third consecutive evening swim, I'm definitely more of a 6 am than 8 pm swimmer, and I've been running on less than six hours' sleep the last few nights.

Arrive at the Dawlish Lesiure Centre after squeezing the Taycan down some very narrow Devon lanes. Then comes a slightly awkward chat at reception. 'Have you pre-booked?' Apparently there isn't really a simple turn up and pay option for lane swim. We get there in the end, I pay the slightly pricey £8.40 / $11.40 fee, and head to the changing room, only to find the lockers are a 'buy a token from reception' job too. Not wanting another conversation, and noticing most of the lockers are full but unlocked anyway, stuff my clothes into the old faithful Arena swim bag and leave it poolside.

I step onto the pool deck just as the previous session finishes. It's on the timetable as 'Condition Training', which I think is basically a masters session. It's clearly popular, with what look like a couple of proper swim coaches on deck, and the board suggests they've had a fun hour.

The 'next up' lane swim session is quiet though, so I've got my choice of lanes. Hop in and make a start.

Was hoping for a longer swim tonight, but I'm convinced the 1 hour session has a hard stop at 8:30 pm, so I break it down and aim for a standard 3.2 km session with five minutes to warm down. Then, just as I'm about to get out, I see more people jumping in. I ask the lifeguard and, sure enough, there's a public swim session for another hour from 8:30 pm - but they've decided to leave the lanes in tonight.

I'm tired and definitely ready to go, but another quick 1.6 km gets me to the intended session and a half I had in mind. Start the watch again and get working through Dawlish swim part B. Your mind and body are definitely in a different place once you've told yourself the session is done, and then have to plough on with more. The second half feels like swimming in treacle and I don't think it adds much value, but it gets done.

I finish up the evening with 4.8 km at a very slow average pace.

I'm definitely going to need some food on the way back to Torbay, and at this time of night I fear my options are going to be limited to McDonald's.