Many of us entering triathlon later in life possess at least some basic experience in one or more of the three disciplines.  Conversely, this also means we may lack skills in one or more of those three.  From many of the stories I hear, it’s often swimming skills which are lacking.  For me personally, swimming was my weakness.  Knowing that we humans like to minimize the things we aren’t good at, we tend to make excuses and dismiss our weaknesses.  We’ve all heard the jokes; “I only swim to get to my bike.”; “If God wanted me to swim he’d have given me fins.”; ”It doesn’t really matter who comes out of the water first, I’ll catch them on the bike/run.” While the last one may be true, it should never be a long-term excuse to neglect the process of getting better. 

Improving my swim proved not to be a short term event.  Rather it was an on-going process.  It’s not that I couldn’t swim.  I took lessons as a kid and even took them again in college.  I was not, however, a competitive swimmer by any means.  I loved to tell people that I was a survival swimmer – “I can swim from the boat to the shore should my raft flip over”.   Frankly, that was the truth.  It wouldn’t have been pretty, but death by drowning sounded horrible….you get the picture.   Both the mindset and skillset in that statement fall short of successfully completing a swim during a triathlon. 

Fortunately I was introduced to a group of coaches early in my triathlon experience.  And more importantly, these coaches had the patience and ability to teach me the spectrum of steps needed to swim efficiently for long distances. I thought I had enough drive to dive right in and fix my issues.  But as time passed, I found out that learning to swim correctly was going to be its own marathon event.  Nothing happened overnight. I would even go so far as to admit that I haven’t yet “arrived” after multiple years in the sport.  Developing skill in anything worthwhile takes time, patience, understanding, the right mindset, and a proven process.

I did several things that gradually made this “swimming” mountain look like a bunch of little mole hills.  First, I found the right people who could help.  In my opinion, this is critical if you want to improve.  It’s hard to self-coach to perfection when you really don’t know what “right” looks like. 

Second, I gradually embraced the idea that I was learning a skill and the techniques of a skill in a deliberate manner. I stopped wondering why I wasn’t already faster or how long this was going to take.  This process would be on-going and involve all the time-consuming, repetitive exposures, mistakes, corrections, and successes that go along with any skill acquirement.  I eventually adopted the habit of absorbing and consistently employing techniques versus mindlessly moving from point A to point B. 

As I trained, I consistently went to swim practice and listened.  I listened to technique assessment and corrective actions.  I started to tune into what my body was doing and how I could manipulate that to my benefit.  To my surprise, the event I disliked the most started to become interesting….woah!  What’s going on here?  Swimming became more and more interesting during every session!  Of course, not every session was fun nor productive.  I left the pool irritated and angry on numerous occasions.  Luckily though, I had the stubbornness to keep showing up.  When a coach told me my head was too high, or my body was flat, or my kick too broad, I tried to correct that.  When they showed me a video of that same deficiency, it was clear I needed to change.  This process became routine and eventually habit.  A couple of years into the venture I became a darn good swimmer.  I wasn’t perfect, nor was I as fast as I wanted to be, but I advanced steadily across the pool lanes from beginner to intermediate to advanced.  You ask how long did it take?  I respond with “does it matter”?

This steady dose of exposure and learning caught on.  Eventually, I figured out that I had to think about technique almost every time I was in the water.  That also meant I needed to think about it during a race.  Yes, I started thinking about my technique during the race.  Whenever my form started to breakdown, I would correct it and get back on track.  There was no time for my mind to wander in any direction other than the present process.  I didn’t care about cycling or running because I was focused on my swim and the techniques I had learned.  Because my mind was occupied wholly on my technique the swim portion of the race (the part I used to dread) began to fly by! What a welcome change!

For me it was swimming. Maybe for you it’s cycling, running, or any sport that demands technical skill sets.  Be the one who is willing to submit to training and coaching.  Be the one who will eventually have an arsenal of techniques to propel you to even greater performances in your sport.  I’ve always enjoyed triathlon because of the cross-training in multiple disciplines.  You have to think, you have to train your body, and you have to train your body to accept new motor skills, and in time, you gradually perfect those skills.  Embrace it all!  Be humble and open your mind to technique and process improvement.  You will almost assuredly get better and faster!