Swimming

Coached indoor swimming

Hello Windmilers! Would you like to swim with us or try out a session?

We offer two coached indoor swim sessions each week—on Mondays at Wimbledon College (Edge Hill, London SW19 4NS) and Wednesdays at Wimbledon Leisure Centre ( Latimer Rd, London SW19 1EW) – running for over 40 weeks a year. In the warmer months, we also organise social open-water swims at various outdoor venues.

Our indoor sessions operate on a block booking system, with a limited number of Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) slots available. Block bookings are announced via club media (Waffle, WhatsApp). If you’re unsure about committing to a full circa. 6-12 weeks block, you can book PAYG sessions through our Club Calendar. If you would like to come try us out to see if we are a good fit for you, get in touch! We will find a day that suits you and book you in for a swim.

To join a session, as a minimum, we simply ask that you can swim at least 50m front crawl at Wimbledon College or 60m front crawl at Wimbledon Leisure Centre. This is primarily for safety, as our lanes are narrow.

All sessions are coached, with Lane One available for a recovery swim. Most sessions involve swimming aids such as pull buoys, fins, and paddles. If you don’t have your own, our coaches have a few spares available on poolside. However, as swimming is a highly technical sport, investing in these training aids can be very beneficial if you’re keen to improve your front crawl.

If you’re interested in swimming with us or giving it a go, we’d love to have you! Let us know if you have any questions, and we hope to see you in the pool soon.

Swim documents (Swim Etiquette, warm up, etc) for both our indoor venues can be found HERE (members-only content).

Mondays at Wimbledon College Pool

Coached swimming sessions are 19:50 on Mondays at Wimbledon College pool (Sports Complex, Wimbledon College, Edge Hill, London SW19 4NS).

If you arrive early, please wait in your car, at the picnic tables, or just outside the building until 19:50. Do not enter the changing rooms until given the go-ahead by the site staff manager, as the session before ours is for juniors.

If you are walking to the college, please note that there is no pedestrian access via the car gate. Instead, please use the top pedestrian gate to enter.

Wednesdays at Wimbledon Leisure Centre Pool

Coached swimming sessions are 20:15 on Wednesdays at Wimbledon Leisure Centre Pool (Wimbledon Leisure Centre and Spa, Latimer Rd, London SW19 1EW).

If club swimming sessions are full, here is a simple reverse pyramid set that you can do in your own time: 400 m easy – 300 m moderate – 200 m fast – 300 m moderate – 400 m easy. This is a total distance of 1900 m, which most swimmers should be able to fit into a one hour slot. 30 seconds rest after every interval. If you’re a faster swimmer looking for a challenge, see if you can make it back up to 100 m.

Windmiler triathlon coaches! (2024)

Non-coached member-organised open water swimming

Members sometimes organise their own informal swimming. These are not club-organised sessions. For information on forthcoming member-organised informal swimming please join the club’s members-only Facebook group. If you are not a Facebook user, Contact the Multi-sport Representative.

Over the last decade, Wimbledon Windmilers have built up an ever-growing and popular open water swimming community. Whilst some members are swimming only, most combine open water swimming with cycling to/from events as well as training for sprint, Olympic, 70.3 and ironman triathlons.

Between May and October each year Windmilers “home” open water venue is Shepperton Open Water Swimming Lake.

Thames Young Mariners (Ham Lake) is another “home” lake which has resumed taking bookings in 2021.