From old to new, the second Black Country swim of the morning.
A second pool of the morning, from the 90-year-old Smethwick Baths to the months-old West Bromwich Leisure Centre. The magnificence of the last pool could not make this modern cookie-cutter leisure centre look more boring!
This was definitely a numbers pool, only eight minutes from Smethwick Baths; I was after the required 1km and not much more. I would like to have added this pool before or after a West Brom football match to include the obligatory stadium selfie with a winning (usually losing) Albion team in the background; I’m a season ticket holder, and the stadium is just down the road, but the timing before/after games didn’t quite work out before the season finished - plus who wants to go swimming after watching West Brom lose!
The lap swim session was set up with three huge double-width rope lanes! Why do they do this? Can’t they be bothered to add the other three ropes to give us six lanes? As usual with this sort of setup, the fast lane was anything but and doing anything but a casual swim was out of the question.
Swim done, time for work.
Swim Stats
- 1200 meters total swim
- 1:34 pace / 100m
- Garmin Swim 2 Watch
Review
(20/100)
For a brand new pool and an army of staff cleaning every square inch, they've still got work to do to do! The pool deck was not 'new pool' clean, and the water had more floating debris than an asteroid belt! Reasonable £4.90 entry and regular public swim sessions in the timetable. I think this is the first pool on the list where I've had to pay a fee to park in the pool car park!
Pool Details
- Length 25 meters
- 3-lane pool
- Indoor
West Bromwich Leisure Centre
Moor St, West Bromwich B70 7AZ, UK