Katong Swimming Pool, Mountbatten Road

Lee Kwan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore had many great ideas. One of those ideas was that everyone should live within walking distance of sporting and recreational facilities. For me, that’s fantastic because it saw the building of vast swimming complexes, more than I’ve ever seen in my life, with parallel Olympic eight-lane pools and kiddy sized leisure pools tacked on the end. It’s a great set up for any out-door swimmer, be you competitive or recreational.


Since those early days though, it seems swimming still hasn’t really taken off. While racquet sports are to Singaporeans what football is to Brazilians, swimming may not be a Singaporean’s natural talent. Reading through forum pages on the internet there’s an army of people looking for buddies to learn to swim with and it’s not for their kids, it’s for them. On reflection, maybe that’s a navy of people looking to swim?

Last weekend as I ran down to the pool from our place, I realised what sort of a neighbourhood the Katong Municipality had chosen to locate their pool in. The area used to be very close to the old airport in pre-federation times and as I trotted past first one english named street, then a second I paid more attention to where I was;

Mountbatten Road     Wilkinson Road     Arthur Road     Goodman Road     Margate Road     Ramsgate Road     Branksome Road     Ringwood Road     Bournemouth Road     Wimborne Road     Cramborne Road     and finally, Clacton Road.
For 10 minutes I was running through the English gardens of Kent and Dorset with the smell of humidity and frangipani thick in my nose instead of roses and rain.


The pool itself was a mixed blessing. I’m a swimmer and my muscles have been aching for the burn of freestyle. My lungs have been missing the distance of a 50m pool but my Lady has not been missing the lingering whiff of chlorine. To have almost the entire complex to myself was aquatic freedom.
With the midday sun brushing a “hello” of light rouge across my pale shoulders and a clear lane infront of me, I pushed through my self-imposed “getting back in the water” set and felt rather chuffed with myself. Chuffed, but reminded how dramatically fitness falls away. It’s like climbing a mountain. It takes weeks and weeks of hard work, slow progress up and down between elevations to acclimatise and many days of pain to make it to the top of the peak. However, one slip and it takes seconds to slide in icy free-fall back to base-camp.
And so it goes with being a swimming machine. I look at my friends who are now undertaking 9 mile open water training sessions back in the UK and while I would happily have joined them in the murky water if I’d been in regular training, I can only dream about it. My arms would never make it right now.


Katong Pool on Wilkinson Road is alright for a swim. It’s an older pool and the tiles might not be the cleanest around the water line, but it works for me. It is open from 8am every day until 11pm so for most people that’s going to be an evening session. The best thing is that it’s a dollar entry in the week and a dollar thirty on weekends. Lockers are forty cents and there’s plenty of space to enjoy the water. Swim coaches for kids or adults come at an extra price but there’s plenty of takers to split the cost with!


Shovel

SPORTS SHOE SHOPPING – QUEENSWAY MALL

Moving to a new country requires you to recreate your training schedule and I figured I should treat myself to a new pair of running shoes to pound the streets with. I turned in my old Asics for the current model, it feels like I’m trading in my spouse for a younger model. The red-trim Asic 2030 runners had got me around a lot of the country, up a lot of hills and from A to B and back again quicker than the outbound. They’re still functionable, but not quite up to the job any more, the edges have gone soft, the support is lacking and, well, they’re just a bit drab.

I know you could pick up a pair of runners at any of the many sports shops in any of the many malls across the island, but to be sure of a better deal and to feel smug about your purchase, you’re better off venturing to Queensway Mall, an older outlet but one that harbours every athletic sporting good you might want. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, front to back with runners, trainers, badminton, squash, tennis, football, rugby, rock-climbing, skateboarding, hiking, trekking, beach, high-street, racquets, t-shirts, shorts: anything you might want to get you back out into the sporting world.

It’s truly jaw dropping the range of choice you have here, at some good deals too compared to high street prices. Any shoe your foot might prefer or require is here, although you’ve got to know what you’re after as there’s none of the helpful customer service that puts you on a gait-measuring tool or an instep sensor and suggests a shoe. The only help you’re likely to find is someone to grab a size ten from the back room and lace it for you.

What I did find, though, was that a lot of the stores have exactly the same prices which saves you the dilemma of trying to find the same shoe at a lower price. It’s a good informal agreement, leaving the only separator as the notional customer service. So after two hours of circling the three floors, lacing and unlacing, I return to the original store and purchase a new pair of blue-trim Asics 2150s at S$50 off the normal high-street price. In between times, I found my impulse purchasing taking over and I was loaded with new shorts, quick-dry singlets, running visor, waist-belt and water bottle and even a new pair of street-runners which I bought while waiting for the afternoon’s deluge to clear.


All in all I had a good sporty afternoon in the confines of a compact mall. The only downside of the aging store was the pungent smell of bak kut teh (pigs organs) being stewed and boiled for lunch, so if you’re olfactory nerves are on the sensitive side, best make it a swift sporty selection!


Shovel