Yate Leisure Centre

Heading over to Bath tonight from Clevedon, decide to take a 20 minute detour to squeeze in a swim at Yate Leisure Centre - i've had my eye on this one for years but never managed to make the logistics work.

It’s the two-hour evening session starting at 7:30pm. I arrive just after 8pm, so there should be time for a solid swim. I’ve not been to Yate before, it sits just north of Bristol, over the border into Gloucestershire, in a slightly odd corner between the M5 and M4.

Pay the £6.20 entrance fee and head into the communal changing rooms. Out on pool deck there’s a 25m six lane pool, with a small learners pool off to the side. The lanes are divvied up with two fast lanes in the middle, each with a swimmer already in. I join a lane with a guy doing a reasonable pace and get started on an opening 1.6km.

The water temperature is fine, but the water itself isn’t great. It’s cloudy, and there’s a noticeable amount of floating detritus. Not ideal.

The lanes are separated by standard ropes, no wave breakers, and for some reason the water is ridiculously choppy. It’s like there’s some weird wave resonance going on. The peaks and troughs are a good 10cm across the entire pool. It honestly feels worse than swimming in open water with a two foot swell, at least those come from one direction. This is just being slapped from every angle. I’ve no idea why, it’s otherwise a fairly standard tiled tub.

I’m probably fishing for excuses, but it’s a very frustrating swim. I find myself getting properly annoyed at one point, it feels like swimming through treacle, and my times definitely reflect that.

I finish up with 150s and then 100s, get to the 3.2km mark, and decide to add another 4 x 100s to make up for yesterday’s cut-short swim. Total distance for the evening is 3600m, albeit at a very slow 1:33 per 100 pace.

Swim done, time to head to the Hampton by Hilton Bath… only to realise, for some reason, that I should be in Bath after I’ve already driven 30 minutes back towards Bristol. Brilliant.