Water Baby

 My first word, apparently, was 'boat'.  

I've been around water all my life: sailing, swimming, kayaking... but I learned to swim breaststroke as a very small child, and became a very strong breaststroke swimmer.  As a result, I never really learned front crawl - I kind of didn't need to.  Most of my water sports have been 'on' water rather than in it, and my breaststroke was strong enough I could hold my own whenever I needed to swim, or to swim for some exercise in the pool.  Most recently, until a couple of years ago I spent most of my days- both working and for fun- in a kayak. 

Photos: Sean Orchard

So having taken up triathlon, and I started to wonder if I needed to learn front crawl.  At first, there didn't seem much point - my front crawl was scrappy and significantly slower than my breaststroke.  I could barely manage a length of front crawl in the pool without stopping and spluttering for breath. I started to learn, though, but was still very slow, and way outside my comfort zone. 

I breaststroked the whole 2.2km of the Celtman Solo Point Five swim in Loch Shieldaig (a sea loch), but then struggled with cramp later on, in the very steep and hilly bike section.  

So for Celtman, I'm on a mission to do the full swim using front crawl, and to do it faster than I could breaststroke it.  That's going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth it - both to speed up the swim, and to give my legs more grace for the bike & run sections.  

Having been a professional coach for a decade I understand the benefit of good coaching - and also of instant feedback, and being able to garner information from a variety of sources, as often as possible whilst doing the activity you're trying to get better at.  I've been having a few swim coaching sessions with Sarah Wiseman of Beyond the Water, and I've also invested in a set of Form Smart Goggles and a Zen8 Swim Trainer.

The coaching sessions with Sarah mean that she can observe, spot the 'difference that will make the most difference' and give me stuff to work on to improve the efficiency of my stroke.  

I can then use the Zen8 trainer to try things on dry land, without the interference of water or the need to breathe; to slow things down and understand the shapes my body needs to make.  

The Form swim goggles then feed back live to me: my speed, stroke rate, heart rate... and keep me moving in the pool without having to struggle to read a watch through steamed-up goggles!  

And so it was today, I found myself making shapes while I swam.  I've worked through a set of drills from Sarah to develop a particular part of the 'catch', and related it in my head to the same phase of the paddle stroke.  My body makes the same shape, just in a different plane, driving through the hips to push forward through the water, timing to form the same shape at the front of the stroke...

And the result?  Slowly, slowly, my front crawl is catching up with my breaststroke, and becoming more efficient.  I'm getting very gradually faster, slicker, and more confident.  And hearteningly, I'm also learning to enjoy the stroke and feel as though I might even look a little bit like a 'proper' swimmer.  

Shape- Rotate - Shape- Rotate- Shape- Rotate...