Overview
I am a marathon swimmer and have in the past spent many hours training in pools and outdoors. It can difficult to get a balance with family life especially when you factor in the time it takes to get to and from swim venues. To solve this problem I wanted to create a low budget swim training setup in my garage.

Endless Pools
I had tried out a few different endless pools and was considering spending around £50k for a professional setup. I decided before taking the plunge into an expensive setup I would try and set up a complete training system with the lowest budget possible. I set a limit of £8k on the project and managed to get something half decent setup within that.

The endless pool head unit was purchased on eBay, a particularly clean example, only oneyearold. The rest of the changes to the garage to get it ready were also done as cheaply as possible.

Change to the garage
My garage had the most amount of clutter ever seen. I put the whole lot on eBay and raised over £1k. This paid for the main changes to the garage.

I deep cleaned the area and tidied up woodwork on the doors and windows. I then had the floor screed to make it level (with a slight tilt so water would flow out of the door ). I then painted the walls and floor with waterproof masonry paint. All the woodwork was also treated with waterproof outdoor grade paint.

For the fuse box and electricity meter, I did not want to have them splashed, so had a joiner build a cabinet on the wall to protect them. Also a handy store for chemicals and other bits and pieces.

Electrics
I had a professional electrician come and install a Ctype breaker to my fuse box and connect up the head unit. A heavyduty shielded cable was used in case I want to move the pool outside in the summer. The light switches and electrical sockets were changed for outdoor waterproof units.

Setup time
Setting up the pool itself with the Bestway tub and the wooden frame took 2 men about one day. It then took overnight to fill it. Once filled the water was only 10 degrees so the first couple of test swims were in my wetsuit.

Heating
Now I can set this pool to any temperature I like, the 3Kw electric heater increases the temperature by approximately 1 degree centigrade per hour. If I leave the heater on for 24 hours it consumes about £5 worth of electricity. However, as I get free electricity (with my current British Gas tariff) on Saturdays I leave at running that day and it can be enough for the week. In winter I need to give it a midweek booster heat. The heat loss is something I need to work on reducing, putting some kind of insulation around the pool would slow the heat loss. Even making some kind of Jacuzzi style lid would help. Currently, it loses about 2 or 3 degrees per day in the winter. In the summer it loses much less, and for the hottest months, there is no need to heat it at all.

Swim quality
As there is no water return (i.e. endless pool benches) – so the swim experience can be challenging. I actually prefer it as the pool exaggerates and critiques stroke. Also because the pool is relatively narrow strokes like the butterfly can be made more difficult. Personally, I can make it work – but I have had other swimmers use it and have their hands hit the side during the stroke.

The current of an endless pool will also exaggerate the downward pull of your legs. This means you have to really focus on a vertical profile whilst swimming – using fins or a pull buoy also helps. This does not affect the great swimmers I have had in my pool, they appear to be as flat as they would in a regular pool.

With all that said – I have done 7hour solid training sessions in the pool and have enjoyed all of it.

The endless unit goes down to 1:14 per 100m. Personally, I swim at between 1:30 and 1:46 so the speed of the unit was not a problem for me. I have had very fast swimmers in the pool who wanted more speed. The faster units are very rare in the UK and much more expensive.