Pancras Square Leisure

At an event in London today and staying over for a meeting tomorrow, also catching up with oldest son who now works in central London.

It's 7pm, cold and raining outside the Hilton Metropol. I'm planning a swim not too far away, but as I stand under the canopy for a couple of minutes with Christmas party-goers in dinner jackets streaming in and out, I have no umbrella, Edgware Road tube station is a three-minute dash, and my warm, dry hotel room is just two minutes back upstairs. Tough decision.

Arrive at Kings Cross station then make my way 500 yards between Kings Cross and St Pancras stations, just past the Google HQ, to the Pancras Square community building. In the basement is an impressive 25m, five-lane pool.

Pay the typical London public-pool entry fee and head downstairs towards the changing rooms. The changing rooms are tiny, barely room to swing a towel. Speaking of which, I'm armed with just a tiny Hilton hand towel this evening.

Weird system for locker tokens. I've got my shoes off and feet wet before I realise the lockers need a special token. A chap in the changing room tells me there's a machine outside where you tap a card to buy a brass disc for £0.30, but it isn't working, so I need to dry feet, don shoes and climb back to reception to get a token. Ridiculous system. It must cost more than that to process the card payments.

Out onto an impressive pool deck. The far wall has frosted panels with glowing, shifting diffused lights (shame a few of them aren't working), a movable floor in half the pool, and a bright white ceiling that makes the whole subterranean space feel deceptively spacious.

It's not too busy, maybe eight swimmers in total. I know from the Better website they cap it at 12 swimmers per hour session.

The five lanes are divided by speed: two slow, two medium, and just one fast lane. I join another guy already running laps in the fast lane and make a start.

Start with a 2km plod and play the game: don't look at the watch, try to guess when you've hit the target distance. I sort of get it right tonight — I think "this must be the 2km," flip turn, and I'm still not expecting it to be correct. Then I stop the watch mid-turn when I see the 2000. Considering you're swimming for 30+ minutes, it's incredible how often you're pretty accurate with distance guessing, even when your mind has wandered far from the swim.

Finish up a 4km total swim, my second in two days, making up for two weeks of slacking.

Swim done, head back over to Kings Cross to meet the kid under the Harry Potter Christmas tree.