Spiceball Leisure Centre

Sometimes I worry about filename clashes with blog posts. Some pools, even at opposite ends of the world, have very similar names. Spiceball Leisure Centre might be unique!

Arrive at Heathrow after an overnight flight back from Nashville. It's 27 degrees, which somehow feels hotter than 33 in Tennessee, and I'm in need of a shower. Home is a two-hour drive north, so a quick search finds a pool just off the M40. Spiceball jumps out! Apparently the area is known as 'spiceball' becaue a local butcher in the 1880s made spicy seasoned meatballs, so now you know!

There's not much to say about this pool. Pay for parking, make a quick change in the communal changing rooms and head out to the pool deck. It's a busy 25m, six-lane pool, with a separate learner pool at the side. The main pool is set up as three double-width lanes with rope dividers. Great.

Stretch, jump in, then get straight back out after remembering the locker is still open. Back in the pool and make a start.

It's definitely a chlorinated pool. You always have to wonder why they need to put so much chlorine in. They're testing it constantly, so I always assume they're battling dirty water. Visibility isn't great. As far as I can tell, that's mostly down to microbubbles in the water column rather than genuinely cloudy water.

The pool looks fairly new and the leisure centre seems well specced, but this lane swim session might as well be a public splash with no real lanes.

Granted, it's a midday session, but it's hard to believe any pool doesn't understand that double-width lanes, especially for a 'fast' lane, cause problems. Just put another rope in. It won't cost anything, and faster swimmers might actually return to these sessions. Right now, we avoid them wherever possible.

That's 2,000m done. Feeling a little fresher and more ready for the drive home. There are 41 miles to go and 54 miles of range left on the car battery. I'll risk it!

Not a great swim experience overall, and certainly not a pool I'll be rushing back to. I did enjoy a post-swim chat with the guy in the Chill Swim Windermere cap - Good luck this year my friend!