Thornbury Lifestyle Centre

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My 4:45am alarm felt painfully early this morning—definitely not firing on all cylinders! Headed down the M5 for a pre-work swim at the recently refurbished Thornbury swimming pool, just northwest of Bristol. On the way, I had to make a quick stop at Gloucester Services for a 20-minute power nap, hoping to shake the exhaustion.

Arrived later than planned and still feeling not-so-fab, but coaxed myself out of the car - even a quick 1km swim is better than nothing. Walking from the car park to the leisure centre, I passed under a buzzing electricity grid pylon that sounded like it was ready to zap anyone daring to come too close.

The pool was busy, set up with six lap lanes: two each for fast, medium, and slow swimmers. There were some decent pace swims going on, which is always a good sign. Headed to the far side fast lanes and got started.

The layout is a 25m, six-lane rectangular pool with a small diving pit attached—around 3m deep with a single board. Despite my sluggish start, I managed to plod through 2,400 metres and felt ready to tackle a proper 3.2km set. Midway, the staff moved swimmers from the fast lane near the wall and started setting up scaffolding on the narrow deck. Just as well they closed the lane—on my next pass, there's a steel scaffolding pole lying at the bottom of the pool!

Finished off with 8x100s to round out a solid 3,200-metre (two-mile) swim.

The shallow end of the pool is just 0.9m deep and extends about four metres before sloping off. There’s a noticeable temperature change at the drop-off point—swimming toward the shallow end, you’re hit with a wall of much warmer water. Not my area of expertise, but I assume warm water is being pumped in and sitting in the top metre of the shallow section, with cooler water lingering in the deeper part. It’s a strange but noticeable effect, though the overall temperature was spot on.

Not the easiest start to the day, but a strong swim always makes it worthwhile!