Learning to Swim - How I did It

I started doing triathlons about a year ago. I’d always been a decent runner and cyclist but swimming was a different matter. I was a complete non-swimmer, I couldn’t even swim 25 yards.

This week, I had a big breakthrough – I did a 1500m OWS in 37 mins. Not that impressive in the big scheme of things but I think I can finally call myself a swimmer. What follows is the story of how I did it.

Please note – this is in no way boasting! My performance is still below average, even for my (old guy) AG. But it’s a massive improvement over last year and I continue to get better. So I offer my story up to help others working through the same challenge as me. It took me a year and with hindsight and lessons learned, I would have done it differently and likely progressed faster, and I’d to help others do better than I did. Mine is definitely not the only way but it worked for me, I hope it works for you.

So newbie swimmers read on – the rest of you, feel free to move right along :-)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m a 52 year old male. I’ve always been pretty sporty – played soccer all my life, ran 5Ks and 10Ks for a few years now, and got into cycling via a couple of charity century rides last year. But for various reasons I have never learned to swim – not even a stroke. So I knuckled down in May 2012 to fix that.

Here’s the quick story of how I did it – the things I would recommend and the things I would not recommend. I honestly feel that if I knew then what I know now, I could’ve reached my goals in 3-4 months versus the 12 months it actually took. So please do profit from my mistakes!

First thing I did was go down my local pool and splash away as hard as I could. I tried to do something which resembled “freestyle” but it was a truly poor imitation. I managed to swim six lengths. Or more accurately, I swam one length six times – with a good five minute break between lengths. I would flail my way from one end of the pool to the other, each 25 yards taking me something like 60 seconds. Every second felt like I was going to drown and I would arrive at the far end gasping like an asthmatic dolphin who smokes 3 packs a day. Not pretty.

What the heck was going on? I like to think of myself as pretty fit, I’m a decent runner and cyclist so obviously have some cardio fitness, so why does a simple swim completely exhaust me? Why can the 70 year old guy in the lane next to me knock out length after length, seemingly effortlessly, when I cannot?

It was obvious that I needed some tuition. First step was to join my local tri club who hosts masters swim classes every Wednesday evening in a local pool. I was nervous as hell before the class and even though the coach was very welcoming, I was clearly way out of my depth (no pun intended) – even the very worst of the other swimmers was so much better than me. I wasn’t even yet good enough to attend a class!

I needed to try something different and it was then a friend recommended Total Immersion. So I duly signed up for their weekend workshop and showed up on a Saturday morning at 8am, me and about 15 other newbie swimmers.

First thing on the agenda – the assessment. Jump in the pool and swim a length (if you can) under the watchful gaze of the instructors. Surprisingly and encouragingly, I was not the worst swimmer there by any means. A couple couldn’t even do freestyle, just battled their way from end to end with breast stroke or even doggy paddle.

I won’t bore you with details of the workshop but let’s just say this: if you’re expecting to start the weekend as the aforementioned asthmatic dolphin and finish it as Michael Phelps, it ain’t gonna happen. And to be fair to TI, they would not claim this. Rein your expectations in. The best you will get will be some principles for you to go practice in your own time – you cannot become an expert swimmer in a weekend.

But TI taught me one very important lesson: swimming is very different to biking and running. The latter two are primarily about cardio fitness, plus a little bit of technique. Swimming is primarily about technique, plus is a little bit of cardio.

Now I understood 70 year old guy’s secret – by any measure, I was a better conditioned athlete than him but in the water, he had a huge advantage: he had mastered the art of moving efficiently. I was swimming like I was towing a 100 pound weight!

TI took a video of my swimming that clearly showed my problems. My feet and legs were hanging low in the water (apparently a common problem with runners/cyclists who have muscular legs but skinny torsos). And the issue was compounded by me lifting my head up and out of the water every time I took a breath. Consequently, I was dragging through the water “diagonally” – swimming uphill as it’s sometimes called. About as non-streamlined as I could be.

Now, of course, there is a world of difference between knowing what you should be doing and actually doing it, and I obviously needed a few prods in the right direction. I took a few follow-up lessons with a TI coach – unfortunately, not as productive as I hoped – so from there on out, I resolved to just get in the pool and do it myself. But as we will see, that was even less productive…

About the same time, I did my first triathlon. Only a 400 yard swim but in a lake, surrounded by 700 fellow participants. As usual, we entered the water in waves – three male waves followed by three female waves. But this event was especially designed by tri newbies (the highly recommended “Tri for Fun” series if you live anywhere near NorCal) and they had a special 7th wave for the nervous swimmer. Naturally, this is where I started. In order to stay as clear as I could of thrashing arms and legs, I started off to one side and towards the back, as recommended by all the best “Triathlon 101” books. And that is where I stayed. Yes, I finished last by some distance (you might think it impossible to take 20 mins to swim 400 yards – I would’ve proved you wrong…) and I can tell you that reaching T1 and seeing just one bike remaining – mine – was a feeling I vowed never to experience again.

As the summer wore on, I continued to train solo and rack up as much pool time as I could. Was I getting better? Maybe a little but it was hard to tell. I did a few more events, and achieved my goal to do a 1500m ocean swim before the end of the season. But pretty it was not. Yes, I finished but in a quite horrendous time of 1 hour 5 mins (but which was amazingly not the worst – I guess I *was* getting better).

As the season drew to an end and winter neared, I resolved that I would be a much better triathlete in 2013. Specifically, I needed to fix the swim. Now, to be fair to myself for a second, managing to swim a mile within 4 months of starting out cold was something of a feat in itself, and my cycling and running performances were respectable – I would typically finish top 25% in my AG on the bike and top 50% on the run. But my horrible swim pulled down my overall results, leading an overall finish round about the 80th percentile in my AG.

So I entered the new year with a firm commitment to improve. First of all, I felt I needed one-on-one swim coaching and after some research, ended up with a truly wonderful coach who was patience personified. I can’t recommend her highly enough and if you live in Norcal, drop me a line and I’ll be happy to share her details.

In our first five minutes together, she correctly diagnosed my key issues: lack of spinal flexibility and lack of abdominal strength. She prescribed a set of core exercises which I still do, and which have made a heck of a difference to my swim.

Secondly, she introduced me to the pull buoy, which enabled me to focus on improving my upper body technique – rotation, glide, pull, breathing – while the buoy kept my legs high in the water. Quite literally the first time I used the pull buoy down the pool, I knocked out 400m with ease – demonstrating quite conclusively that body positioning was my problem.

Then when my upper body technique improved and when my core had grown stronger, she took the pull buoy away and gave me fins. These had the benefit of helping me develop my kick whilst at the same time keeping my legs afloat.

Finally, she took away the fins and hey presto, I was swimming! Not quickly but with good form. And that’s the important thing – do not focus on speed, focus on good form and the speed will come.

Now I had the basics down, it was time to put it all into practice and start building up some endurance. Via this forum, I stumbled on the quite wonderfully simple “0 to 1650 in 6 weeks” swim plan by Ruth Kazez (google it!).

Per the instructions, I hit the pool 3-4 times a week religiously, gradually building up distance week by week.

And along the way, a curious thing happened. The further I swam, the more efficient I became and the faster I was. In week 1, I was swimming 200m at 2:55 mins/100m and at 20 strokes per length. By week 5, I was swimming 1200m at 2:29 mins/100m and at 14 strokes per length.

Finally, I felt ready to put it all to the test and entered last week’s 1500m swim race. As I mentioned already, I completed it in around 37 minutes – not world beating by any stretch of the imagination but a full 28 minutes better than my last attempt at this distance in September.

Just as satisfying was that I managed the whole thing with no more than the occasional pause for breath, and without any of the “OWS panic” that has bedeviled many of my previous race swims. Even better was that there were literally dozens of people slower than me :-)

Can I get better? You bet, and I will. I am now inspired and motivated, I know I can do it.

So 12 months down the road, how would I do it all differently? Well, I’d pretty much dispense with the whole first 8 months of my training. If you are today starting out at the same standard I was 12 months ago, then I recommend four key things:

a) get a good one-on-one swim coach
b) get a pull buoy and some fins
c) do the 0 to 1650 swim program
d) get down the pool a lot and do as many open water swims as you can.

And don’t despair. If this old guy can crack it, you can too.

Good luck and happy swimming!


Edited by smallard 2013-06-08 5:33 PM