Lido Day 2014

Our annual lido day, and if you squint, it's nearly sunny! For the last two years, we've been cursed with unseasonably cold, wet weather, so a warm day was an absolute treat. The sun even broke through late-afternoon. My plan to get an early night and then hop on an early train backfired drastically as I couldn't get to sleep. I think I'd got about five hours when my alarm went off at 5.30am. A nearly-empty Olympic pool made me feel much better and we spent a while doing lengths in the first pool of the day (not a lido). After breakfast in Westfield, we lost one of our team, but the remaining three of us soldiered on to Charlton lido. The newly refurbished pool was lovely, and as it was 50m Ellie and I were able to tick off one of our Olympic events. Predictably, we were running hugely behind time, but eventually made it down to Tooting Lido. We were all feeling a bit knackered by then, and just ended up bobbing around for a while, and did some half-hearted widths as it was full of kids jumping in. As we were so behind, we had to scrap the Serpentine and head straight to Oasis; the pool in central London. I'd never been before, and wouldn't bother again (it was small and crowded), but it did have an indoor and outdoor pool, so we were able to cheat a bit and bring our total up to five! I always forget how tiring Lido Day is, and this year I was running on empty anyway, so I felt exhausted when we'd done. We went for some late dinner in Leon before an incredible celebratory ice cream from Scoop. I was feeling a bit delirious by the time we got back to Ellie's, and we just conked out! We're thinking of doing an Essex leg next year, which would be ace.