Those of you who have had the opportunity to laugh at my distressed splashing efforts at swimming better suck up those memories because those days may well be over.  Oh yes, Vince the bobbing cork/splashing fool/wind-up frog with deffective paddle will soon, with the help of Swim For Tri, be reborn as aqua man, hydro dude or just simply H2-Oh my god that was fast.

Newbie triathletes, we just can’t get enough biking and running.  It’s the law of returns we love.  Stick more in, try harder and you get more out, you go faster.  Throw that attitude in the pool and you get more tired and go slower. 

Let’s just admit it newbies, fishes aside, we all just slog through the swim because we have to.  It’s the biking and running where the real racing begins.  The only reason we don’t just stick with duathlon, is it’s just not really very cool and there’s less kit to buy.

The thing is, the swim sets up the rest of your race.  If you’re like me, you know you’ll never be first out of the water, but if we could just have a good swim we'll be fresh for the bike and better yet in the top 20% of the field.

Ok so here’s the thing about swimming, it’s really hard.  It’s super technical.  You can’t just read articles in 220 or ask your mate to check you out.  You can’t just swim loads and hope it’ll improve at the rate of your biking and running.  In fact, you might end up going slower and having sore shoulders.  Just me?

This is why I think a lot of people don’t like swimming.  Sure, staring at the bottom of pool for lap after lap is dull, but that’s not really it.  It’s because it’s really, really difficult to get it right.  Tiny adjustments make a huge difference.  You never know if you are making the right adjustments, or how it will impact your overall form.

Less effort can mean more speed.  What?  You gotta be sh*ting me?

So here’s what you have to do.  You gotta get filmed.  You gotta get somebody who really knows the mechanics of swimming and can explain to you what’s going wrong and how to fix it.  You gotta get hold of Dan Bullock or one of his excellent swim coaches.

A lot of you already know about Swim For Tri and I guess some of you even made it out to their barn in the windy marshy plains of Essex.  I heard you needed to get three different forms of transport, pack a lunch and thermos, maybe set off the day before your appointment.  I don’t know if this is true, but their new place in the Truman brewery on Brick Lane is all kinds of awesome.  You feel like you’re in some sort of trendy media design studio.  There’s tri stuff lying about the place and whole affair just oozes class and professionalism.

In minutes you’re in an endless pool (read; large bath tub with jets blasting water at you at adjustable speeds).  After warming up for a minute, getting used to the fact that you are swimming on the spot and trying to stay in the current, you are filmed from all angles.  Each couple of minutes Dan or one of the other SFT coaches will play back the footage and critique elements of your stroke.  This was the moment of my epiphany.  My jaw hit the water as I saw this flailing form struggling around in a mass of bubbles, reeling off CNRHKs (Chuck Norris Round House Kicks) with a gattling like frenzy.  Oh my God, is that me?  I whispered.  My guns were working furiously against the water and getting me nowhere. 

Each time I dived back into the stream, with new stuff to think about, it felt a little more natural.  In no time at all, the session was over, and I reviewed the footage with Dan at the PC. 

So much to work on, but he was good enough to give me a few points that I had got right….or was that just one?  I think my head position was ok.

I got home and immediately fired up the dvd player and inserted my latest video nasty.  My wife was rolling around on the floor in tears of laughter.  You look like you’re falling out of a plane, she gasped, drying tears from her eyes.

A day later, a follow-up email from Dan popped into my inbox detailing a session of drills specific to my filming and even a couple of clips of the pros to show where I need to improve. 

I won’t just be watching the tiles go by next I’m in the pool, I’ll be thinking, get that stroke closer to my body, kick shallow, time that breath sooner in the cycle.  (If you need motivation to swim, there's nothing like a video clip of your own bad form).

Listen tri guys and gals, this is definitely an awesome way to improve your swimming.  We all spend so much on kit to get a few seconds faster on our bikes but I’m pretty sure SFT will give you so many more seconds/minutes for your hard earned bucks and any set of aero wheels.

http://www.sft-analysis.com/

Check it out, you will not regret it and can only get faster.