Fearing the swim? Fear not.

It’s been less than a year since I started swimming.  My first pool swim was on April 9th, 2007.  That day it took me 40 minutes to go 750 yards, or an average of 5:00/100 yards.  Seriously.  I think doggie paddling or floating on a pool toy would have been faster.

I started off swimming with about the same swim skills as everyone else.  Like most people, I could lounge around a pool, or splash around the waves at the ocean without issue for hours.  But swimming back and forth across a pool and doing some form of aquatic breathing was not in my athletic playbook.  The equivalent of man-ballet.

Had I not already decided to sign up for a Half-Ironman BEFORE I got in the pool for the first time, I might have just quit right then and there.  I could barely make it across the pool.  But I kept at it.  I swam three days a week, every week.  More important than that though – I followed a relatively simple guide from a relatively simple site.  No flashy graphics, videos or complicated words.

I followed this guide on ‘How to swim from 0 to 1650m’ (a mile) in six weeks.  Here’s a snippet from their intro paragraph:

“Young or old, fit or not, six weeks seems to be the most common length of time it takes to be able to swim a mile without stopping for breath.”

The workouts didn’t have any special drills or fancy swimming terms in them.  You simply just swam.  There was a pattern though.  The pattern helped to push you along – to get you in a groove and focus on a goal.  Here’s an example of the first week’s workout:

WEEK one (Three Days):
100 yards…rest for 12 breaths…repeat 3 times.
50 yards…rest for 8 breaths…repeat 3 times.
25 yards…rest for 4 breaths…repeat 3 times.
total: 700 yards

I can say that I probably did a lot more stopping than the above guidelines the first week.  Like at each side of the pool….for a while.  But the workouts gave me a goal and I stayed with the program for probably about four weeks before I strayed and starting doing my own workouts.  By that time I was more than comfortable in the water and could pretty much go back and forth for extended periods of time without issue.

One thing I did do though is start bilaterally breathing from the start.  I was determined to make that a natural part of my swimming toolkit.  It was a bit funky at first, but then again – everything in the pool was funky.  Given I couldn’t breath on one side – breathing on two sides wasn’t really any worse (kinda like how zero times any number is always zero).

So – now all your non-tri folks out there (I’m looking at you runners!), have no excuse to not jump headfirst into the sport of tri (even if you do a belly flop along the way).  Now’s the perfect time of year!

FOUND THIS POST USEFUL? SUPPORT THE SITE!

Hopefully, you found this post useful. The website is really a labor of love, so please consider becoming a DC RAINMAKER Supporter. This gets you an ad-free experience, and access to our (mostly) bi-monthly behind-the-scenes video series of “Shed Talkin’”.

Support DCRainMaker - Shop on Amazon

Otherwise, perhaps consider using the below link if shopping on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. It could simply be buying toilet paper, or this pizza oven we use and love.