Torbay Leisure Centre

First new pool in over a month! Tonight I'm heading down to the south coast, the English Riviera no less, ahead of a 'get stuff done' day tomorrow.

Quick pit stop in Exeter to give the car some charge, then arrive at Torbay Leisure Centre just in time for the evening lane swim. It's a hard stop at 8:45pm because canoe club waits for no one!

A couple of weeks ago I went to see the Fawlty Towers play at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham, so it feels pretty fitting that the next pool on the list is Torquay.

Pay parking, entrance fee, grab a cardboard carton of water, quick change, and I'm through to poolside - jammers still cold and damp from last night, nice! It's busy, but pleased to see six speed assigned lanes with proper lane ropes, plus some decent swimmers in the fast lanes already working through planned sets.

Jump in and get started. I'm sharing with a couple of swimmers holding a decent pace, swapping in and out of paddles, so this should be fine.

The water temperature is just right, but it's weirdly cloudy in the shallow end and clears towards the middle of the pool. Bit odd. The shallow end is also properly shallow, a real finger scraper. I'm planning a 1600, then breaking it down into 800s for a usual 3.2km swim tonight.

About 150m in, somewhere mid pool, my wedding ring slips straight off my finger and drops to the bottom! Fortunately it's right where the water starts to clear, so I can just about see it. I wait for people to pass, dive down and grab it. Lukcy! That has never happened before. I must be losing weight, just in the wrong places! Paddle up to the far end, and start the watch again. At some point I decide to forget the plan and just settle into a 3.2km plod, then add a few more lengths until they start pulling the lane ropes out.

Finish with 3.6km for the second day running. I need to keep nudging up the weekly averages because open water season is coming, and I'm signed up for the Coniston 8.5km skins swim in the Lake District this year, so cold water training is very much needed.