Just Keep Swimming... A Tale of a Non-swimmer

When we decided to start doing triathlons last summer we were pretty excited and pretty confident we could do well in all three disciplines even though we really only had any experience with running. We didn't have bikes but we loved to swim... by swim I mean we loved going outside in the summer and jumping in the pool and lounging around.  

For our first swim workout we walked into the local rec center feeling good about ourselves for no good reason at all! I jumped in the pool, started swimming and man was I quickly humbled! I could barely make it one length of the pool which was a 25 meter pool! I stopped once I reached the wall and rested for probably 60 seconds before I mustered up the strength to make my way back. I probably swam 200 meters and I was spent. I realized this swimming thing was going to be A LOT harder than I thought.

When we talk about triathlons with people the number one thing we hear is "There's no way I could do the swim!" But you know what that's exactly how I felt after doing my first swim workout, but doing Ironman Boise this year was at the front of my mind and I wasn't going to let the swimming stop me. I didn't give up, I used it as motivation to get better because man did I have room for improvement..... and that's putting it nicely.
Swimming is pretty dang technical and I didn't have good form at all, my butt sank down, my feet couldn't stay close together and when I would breathe I felt like I was completely lifting my head out of the water. But we kept at it, we watched a lot of videos online and just kept swimming and swimming. And you know what? Slowly but surely I improved, I started noticing that we were swimming farther and farther every week. I realized that this swimming thing might not be as bad as I thought! When December rolled around we thought we were pretty good at swimming, we had really put in a lot of work and during a few workouts we almost got to 1,000 meters which was far for us.
January came and we decided that we wanted to get a triathlon coach, we just didn't have the knowledge to construct effective training plans. We signed up with Balanced Art Multisport  and quickly realized we were not as good at any of the disciplines as we thought!
Our coach Keate gave us our first swim workout and just from looking at it I thought I was going to drown! We were supposed to swim 1,900 total meters!!!! Are you kidding! The most I had swam was maybe 1,000 m. Anyways here is a look at our first swim workout from our coach.

300 easy
200 kick on side
100 fist drill
8x75 (25 kick, 25 fist drill, 25 swim) with 15 seconds rest
8x75 (25 easy, 25 med, 25 fast) on 2:00
100 easy cooldown

I immediately thought "there is no way I can swim that far!" and I looked at the rest period and I saw 15 seconds. 15 seconds?!?!? I'm used to resting for a minimum of 2 minutes! And sometimes like 5 minutes! I thought we had been pushing ourselves with our previous swim workouts averaging about 600 meters but I realized we had been staying at that distance for awhile. Anyways we went to the pool to try and tackle this workout I told Kassia that I hoped I would live but I seriously had some doubts..... but guess what? We made it through! Kassia made it through better than I did, she is a better swimmer than I am, I did have to rest a little longer than 15 seconds on some of the intervals but I finished the workout! Let me tell ya, I was pretty excited, that was the farthest I had swam in my whole life! And it taught me a super important lesson. Our bodies are capable of some pretty incredible things but we often let our minds limit us. I really doubted if I was going to be able to swim that far but I pushed through and I did it, I needed to ignore my negativity and focus on the challenge. Our swim workouts have increased in difficulty and length and we have been able to do all of them. Obviously they have been hard to push through but we get them done.

The other lesson I learned is how great it is to have someone push you, in my case I got 2 great people pushing me. Kassia is a machine and when I complain and say I'm tired she tells me to suck it up and keep going. Then Keate Avery our coach with Balanced Art Multisport, is an unbelievable coach. He challenges us with our workouts and he pushes us but it has made all the difference in the world. We have had some workouts where we are pushing 3000 meters and one night Kassia swam over 4000 m! (Top picture is how she felt after) That is a long ways from the 200 we could barely do the first time!
If we didn't have Keate pushing us we wouldn't have made much progress. He is always super patient and willing to help, we ran into him at the pool at our rec center one night and me and Kassia were like "Oh crap now we have to swim good!" We were nervous! He was there to do his workout but he took a lot of time out of his workout to help us with our form and some drills and it helped so much! We couldn't be happier! We highly recommend a coach if it is affordable for anyone! We didn't have the knowledge to train and we weren't progressing so it has made a huge difference for us. I'm happy he challenged us from the beginning and gave us harder swim workouts than what we were used to. It sounds cliche but if it doesn't challenge you it doesn't change you! We were stagnant, Keate pushed us and he continues to do so and we freaking love it!

So for anybody out there who is afraid of the swim part of the triathlon the best way to fix that is to just jump in the water and swim! Ya it's hard and it will suck for awhile but I GUARANTEE you will get better. It just takes repetition and hard work! Don't give up! It's amazing what your body is capable of, sometimes we just got to push through the negativity in our brain and that is how we get better!
The swimming has easily been the biggest challenge of all three disciplines but we have both grown to actually enjoy swimming, there are some times when I would actually choose swimming over biking and I never thought I would say that! By no means am I a great swimmer, heck I don't think I'm even a good swimmer but I know I'm going to get better and I can't wait to see where this year takes us! Wes Johnson who started Balanced Art Multisport recently told us down at the BAM Camp "You have to truly believe who you are and what you are capable of. No matter what your background is you won't make your big jump with progress until you truly love to swim, bike and run. You have to tell yourself I AM A SWIMMER!" That has really changed our mindset and you know what..... slowly but surely I'm starting to feel like a swimmer!


Thanks for reading,
Brady

PS- When I was finding pictures for this I realized there are none of me! I promise I do swim I guess I like taking pictures more than being in them