I’ve always had a ‘breast is best’ approach to my triathlon swims. I am a good breaststroke swimmer, it’s always been my stroke and I have placed highly enough in my past two sprint swims to not worry about fixing what ain’t broken. So why would I change it now?
Because secretly, in the back of my head, I feel like a fraud. Triathlon swimmers swim crawl, right? Especially Olympic distance sea swim triathletes. Plus, my one sea swim so far taught me that if I attempt to swim a mile breaststroke in a wetsuit, I am going to be floating around on the surface with my legs frog kicking the air and my face somewhere on the sea bed. Not fast, not cool, not remotely athletic.
So I decided to work at it. My first session in the pool was, frankly, shocking. I did a length and a half of surface slapping spasming before reverting to breaststroke and, utterly destitute, started to question whether I would even be able to do this tri at all. It was a harsh wake up call to the fact that I was going to have to start from nothing and push myself stroke by stroke, length by length, session by session to become the swimmer I want to be.
Last night, I swam forty lengths of front crawl. And I am feeling q proud of myself right now! Milestone achieved. I worked really hard to do it. I trained, I researched how the hell you swim front crawl anyway, I watched other people and then I got there. Now I have to work on speed.
So whether your idea of success is 2 lengths in the pool, a 5k run under 25minutes, an Olympic distance tri placed second in the field or to complete an Iron Man, we all start somewhere. Setting yourself, and achieving targets along the way makes you feel GOOD! And feeling good is what tri is all about. To me, anyway.