Just Swim Faster

When I was a kid we would go to a nearby lake on hot summer days and, as boys would do, race each other.  Racing for me then simply entailed kicking my legs and swinging my arms faster (swimming with a “higher cadence” if you must).  Swimming faster was intuitively obvious.

Fast-forward three-plus decades to the start of my triathlon life: upon arriving at the pool for my first day of swim training, the coach took one horrified look at my frantic, gasping effort to swim the 25-meter length of the pool and told me emphatically how I needed to slow everything down and fundamentally streamline my swim stroke.  Over the next few years I did my best to learn to glide through the water like a fish with a strong, smooth stroke.

And it worked.  I went from being absolutely last place out of the swim in my first triathlon to more respectable middle of the pack position   

Well it worked up to a point.  Eventually my swim progression hit a plateau, and then inexplicably went into reverse (see previous blog post) The swim coaches have continued telling me to “relax”. Problem it seems is that now I am relaxing way, way too much during the triathlons.  Relaxing so much that I have become really, really slow – losing all sense of even trying to “race” – forgetting what was obvious to me at the age of 10.  

The swim is the shortest portion of the triathlon, but it costs me a huge 10-minutes off my goal pace.  I decide that I have to do something to get back to swimming 2-minutes per 100-meters, but what?  And why do I keep tying up 5-minutes into each swim session?   I asked my teammates and coaches and spent hours searching the internet and watching youtube swim videos.  I tried various adjustments to body position and hand position and hip rotation.  And then one day I saw some boys playing at the pool and in a blinding flash of deep insight it hit me - "I will just swim faster!"
 

So swim training the past month has been a short-term experiment --  an experiment with higher cadence, an experiment in  "damage minimization" --  Can I will myself back to a sub 2-minute per 100-meter race pace that I was swimming 3 years ago? At the start of each interval I just tell myself to stroke fast. Forget the drills and the science and any progressive adaptation.  Every training session I do 2-minute per 100-meters intervals on short rest.  I add another 100-meter each day (like adding one push-up per day).  Mentally and physically I want myself to register this pace as my swim speed.   For the moment I abandon my bilateral breathing and really abandon any focus on swim technique (hopefully there are no swim coaches reading this blog post). 

I have not completely forgot all the coaches advice to “relax”.  What  I do is to just tell myself that I am relaxed.  As I churn my arms with higher cadence, spiking the water, rapidly catching, driving forward and breathing harder, I blow out the words “I feeeeel reeeeelaaaaaxxxxxeeddddd”  into the bubbles as I exhale into the water.  I really do this.  I am not kidding.  Every interval.  And I swear it actually works -- reconciling some of the annoyingly conflicting swim advice I have received – I do feel stronger and more relaxed and that I can maintain this rapid cadence. 

Last week I entered the Hayama Open Water Swim to test if my little experiment was working at all

Giant waves pound the beach, and the race officials cut the race from a 3k double loop to a 1.3k out-and-back.   I am a little freaked out.

But I remember to be like the kid on a lake on a hot summer day. I leap in the water and start chopping rapidly through the surf. I strive to “spike the fish” (make short, choppy strokes) as I climb over the waves.  As I plunge over some big swells, get kicked, and struggle to sight the buoy,  I blow out words into the water --  “I feeeeeel soooooo reeeelaaaaxedddddddd” “haaaavvvvving fuuuuuuuuun”   “could do this allllllll daaaaaaaay”  

Ultimately my time of 26:30 is a faster pace than any of the swims I have done over the past 12 months.  And that is not even taking into account the waves and my poor sighting.

It is really satisfying to realize this rebound in swim performance and for the moment it is fun to power through my workouts with my eyes trained on the clock. But don't get me wrong - I am the last person that would advocate any swim technique.  And I look forward to the end of my triathlon season and going back to "zen swimming"