<\/p>
Enough is enough, this has to stop now folks, it\u2019s getting embarrassing and it\u2019s going to end badly for both of us. <\/strong><\/p> I\u2019m not referring to my triathlon career, this column, or even my habit of hoiking my bib shorts<\/a><\/strong> up and relieving myself on roadsides, but instead to the number of people who have suddenly started asking me for coaching advice.<\/p> I should stress that it\u2019s only one part of triathlon that anyone seeks my zen-like guidance on, and it is of course swimming. This is partly down to results, but also down to the fact that people can actually see me when I\u2019m cycling and running, and no one in their right mind would want to emulate that. <\/p> However, they can\u2019t see me when I\u2019m lurking below the waterline so they only have my swim times to go on \u2013 if they could see my crabby arm stroke, non-existent kick, and other dirty doings<\/a><\/strong> I get up to beneath the waves I suspect that requests for coaching advice would dry up sharpish.<\/p> My swim times this year have been quite good and all in all it hasn\u2019t been a bad old year in the neoprene part of races. <\/p> I\u2019ve emerged Kraken-like from a couple of tri swims in first place, won a 10km swim, lopped five minutes off my PB in another, become fastest old git (Masters) in the West Midlands at the 5km open-water champs, and recently swam the full 11 miles of Windermere in 4:40hrs, earning me an impressively thick slate trophy for doing so quicker than any other 55-year-old.<\/p> Unencumbered as I am by modesty I haven\u2019t been especially shy about these achievements, but instead of the praise I was fishing for I have received several requests to give people advice on how to become better swimmers. <\/p> I\u2019ve had people collar me in transitions, corner me at registrations, bend my ear at barbeques, ask me to go swimming with them, and even threaten to send me videos of themselves swimming for me to review, like I\u2019m a judge on Strictly Come Freestyle.<\/p> There\u2019s only one problem with all this \u2013 I don\u2019t have a bloody clue how to make you swim faster. If I did, I\u2019d apply this knowledge to myself first. <\/p> You don\u2019t honestly think I have my claw-like, arm-swinging technique out of choice do you? No, that is the way my body moves and I am powerless to change it, all I can do is summon up enough obstinacy and lung capacity to fashion it into forward propulsion. <\/p> I have no idea what makes a good swim stroke<\/a><\/strong> other than when I\u2019ve watched proper swimmers like Cassie Patten or Hector Pardoe overtake me.<\/p> Several people come to me in the belief that some small change to their technique is the magic bullet that will turn them into Florian Wellbrock, and that all they have to do is alter their hand entry as per the YouTube video they\u2019ve just watched and lo! \u2013 twice the speed at half the effort. <\/p> That has not been my experience. No, I\u2019m afraid that if there was some easy route to instant watery greatness, we\u2019d all be doing it. Instead, as with most things, I\u2019ve had to achieve competence the hard way, namely getting up at 4am three mornings a week for the last (insert large number) of years to swim between 5 and 7km at City of Coventry Swimming Club squad sessions.<\/p> This, however, is not what people want to hear. They want the effort-lite version, so please, I beg you, stop asking me. <\/p> I don\u2019t know the answers to your questions, and I\u2019m starting to feel bad that any tips I give you out of politeness aren\u2019t helping. Honestly, I might be relatively quick for an ageing triathlete but I couldn\u2019t become a coach<\/a><\/strong> if you took all my teeth out and put 52 seats in.<\/p>Kraken-like<\/h2>
No easy route to watery greatness<\/h2>