I had a 12 hour layover on the way to Ironman South Africa a few years ago, so I took the tube into town and changed at the Queen Mother Sports center, went for a run around Buckingham Palace and did a swim at the sports center. It looks like this center is 20-30 min away from where you are via tube and walking, but the Olympic Aquatics complex is only 20 min by the tube. If I had my choice to swim where Phelps and company were swimming, you know which one I would choose. I actually picked a hotel a while ago in Beijing so that I could swim at the Watercube, but they had that closed to some stupid light show and swimmers were relegated to the warmup pool. I've swam in the Montreal, Munich and Seoul Olympic pools, so you can see my personal tourist trend here!

You could try http://www.better.org.uk/...orges-leisure-centre - should be (easily) less than 2km away - and about 5mins on a city hire bike if you're happy to do it that way). I use this a bit (33m pool). Not the flashest of facilities by any stretch (it's run by the council and they could do with some extra cash) but the pool itself has always been clean and as long as you don't go when they have closed off one end for kids play it's generally pretty uncrowded. Is also only about £5/visit.

Definitely go to the Olympic pool in Stratford, it's much less than 20 minutes away. About 10 mins on the tube on the central line from L'pool St. It's a cracking 10 lane 50m pool. Just have a check on the website to make sure nothing else is on.

http://www.londonaquaticscentre.org/swimming/pool-programme


You want the competition pool.

The Virgin Active Broadgate Club is right next to Liverpool St station. Good 25m pool and gym.....BUT I haven't been there for a while and don't know what their policy is on "drop-ins". So close it might be worth asking anyway...

Indeed, as long as you're not trying to squeeze your swim(s) into a tight schedule, the short trip out to the London 2012 Olympic Pool at the London Aquatics Centre is totally worth it.

Most days the Competition Pool (i.e. the main pool) has at least 5 lanes set aside all day for lap swimming; just check the timetable on the website because they do occasionally have other stuff on. Perfectly fine for casual users, you certainly don't need to bother booking in advance online as their website used to suggest, just turn up, pay your ~£5 and you can swim for as long as you like in 50 metres of crystal clear London water.

If the Stratford pool is closed, there's a 25m at mile end I used to swim at all the time. It's only two stops away on the central line.
https://www.better.org.uk/...entre/timetable/pool

Tube to the Olympic park, absolutely. From Liverpool street you can get on the Central (red) line eastbound to Stratford station. There are probably other better ways depending how far you are from Liverpool street station and how much you want or don't want to walk.

Oh right. Liverpool street underground station. Not Liverpool street train or overground station.

Buy an Oyster card. It makes getting around loads easier.

I should book my summer vacation in London JUST TO DO THE ABOVE!!! The rest of London would be an added bonus. Each time I went since 2012, the pool was either still not available to the public, or it did not fit into my work schedule

that's not a phrase you see very often!

Virgin Active (my usual pool) would be as nothing to the Olympic centre

for something completely different, the Hampstead Heath men's and women's bathing ponds are a kick and very busy at 7:00 a.m. -- not so much for training but for the experience

Bugger that! Swim in the Serpentine!

You know, that's like the idiot that books a ski vacation to Dubai to ski there, but people do all kinds of stupid things!!! So booking a vacation to swim in crystal clear London water might indeed be a unique tourism selling point...well if you want to swim in the lane beside Phelps (albeit a few years too late), then it is.

Echo this. Every time I'm in London for business I hit the Olympic Pool. It's an easy tube ride/DLR to Stratford and then a short walk from the station.

Just out of curiousity, what is the water temp in there, from June - Sep. And I assume this is the opposite of crystal clear London water. On a plus note, no one dies after ITU races in the same body of water!

The serpentine isn't too bad water quality wise IMO (but I have to deal with Green Lake in Seattle which is pretty abysmal and I avoid it most of the time). IIRC, it's around 14-15 C mid summer. It's currently 13 C.

http://serpentineswimmingclub.com/weather/

duck weed, duck poo, algae bloom (infrequently in summer), crisp packets

it's great though.

Yeah, the Serpentine is worth a visit if you're in the area. However, it's worth noting to those that haven't used it before that you can't just go and swim wherever you like in the lake, you're restricted to a cordoned-off 110m(?) long area, so it's almost a halfway-house between pool-swimming and open water. The water quality isn't too bad; it has its fair share of algae, mud and duck poo, but the bottom is concreted so there's not too much muck getting churned up and you won't get sick!

I have walked and run by this area a few times.....that 13C temp puts it in "no swim temp" for me. Perhaps with a wetsuit. I'm not too worried about dying from duck poo. I have swam in worse (ex Ironman Texas swamp).

Thanks to all for responding - some great info here. I may pass on the Serpentine but will certainly give the Aquatic Centre a try.

Royal LondonnDocks open water swimming.
It's where they do the London Triathlon swim and the water is fine (at least it was last year):
http://www.londonroyaldocksows.co.uk

Just a quick note to thank all for posting. I ended up going to the Aqautic Centre three times. Regular trains made it amazingly quick and convenient, and at the times I went there were only 4/5 people per lane. It took a while to adjust to an LCM pool but I loved it.

Thanks again,
BH

This should be stickied. It's an awesome place to start. I use it on every trip (15-18 days away from home per month). Most of the info is up to date, however if you find it's not, help the site out by updating it.

https://www.swimmersguide.com/

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"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5