I have to hold my hands up in apology my dear Rockupandrollers. Earlier this week I posted what I said was my last training blog before my swim for Aspire in Snowdonia this coming Saturday. The reason was because I said I’d lost my swimming mojo and I couldn’t bear writing about another rubbish training session. Well, fear not my blog reading lovelies I’ve been for a double swim training session and the mojo is back. Now I feel ready to proclaim ‘bring on the swim and let’s see what you’ve got Snowdonia!’

I decided to do a morning and afternoon swim today as that is what I will be doing next week. If I’m honest after the first swim I was ready to go back to bed and pull the duvet up over my head. The water was over 30 degrees and that is just too hot to swim, it’s like training in a sauna. What made it even worse was that it was also incredibly busy and I was just getting in everyone’s way. As a stroke of luck though I happened to open the local free paper when I got home, which I never do and saw that for the summer months only Charlton Lido is opening its doors again.

I took this as an omen from the aquatic gods and picked up a new set of swim shorts and towels and headed for the lido. What an inspired decision. I loved every minute of it, it feels like something from the 60s. There was no airs and graces about the pool, it’s just an open air pool with very basic facilities. What I loved the most was it was empty and there was no chlorine, so for forty minutes I swam and swam and swam with a big silly grin on my face.

What I will say was man alive it was cold. It’s unheated and to try and keep warm I wore a fetching red swim hat and a pair of verucca socks! This only provided a fraction of warmth so much so that when I got out of the water I had nipples that could cut glass and my balls looked like two broad beans in a three day old teabag. Apologies for any mental pictures that has created but I think you get the point.

Anyway the pool is only open until the end of October, it’s quiet, cheap and doesn’t have chlorine so I would heartily encourage anyone in South East London to check it out. More details can be found here http://www.gll.org/centre/charlton-lido.asp .