As I said yesterday, this morning one of my athletes lined up for his very first triathlon. As it was his first, it was always going to be a bit of an unknown as to how it was going to go. We had made sure he was adequately prepared in terms of fitness, race plan etc. He understood transitions and all that, but it still all needed to be put into practice. Sometimes there is simply no substitute for doing. No matter how well trained you are, things can still catch you by surprise on race day.
Thankfully today I would say there were no really big surprises. There were plenty of learnings, but no big surprises.
The biggest learning today for my athlete was about open water swimming with people. Ken has been swimming in the ocean for weeks now and is an experienced surfer and so has no problems being in open water. However, swimming is not his strongest leg and as such I was aware of how daunting a pack swim can be when you first encounter one.
Knowing that a pack swim can be a bit panic inducing I had talked to Ken about what to expect and strategies to cope with any feelings of panic he might get. However, there is knowing and there is experiencing and they are often different things. Despite our talks, Ken still had that classic experience that occurs when people swim in a big group for the first time. Panic.
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| The face of an unhappy swimmer |
The way Ken explains it as soon he hit first turn buoy (about 100m in) he knew that he wasn't comfortable. He didn't have a rhythm, he had taken in some water, he was on the verge. From that point on the rest of the 500m was about survival. At the end of the first lap (there were two laps) he even took a moment to compose himself, but it didn't really help. He got out of the swim feeling pretty miserable.
Ken's cycling is improving and he is a strong runner so he was able to get back into the race, but that feeling of discomfort from the swim never left him. It was actually a good lesson on why practicing the swim leg is so important. Ken only lost a bit of time on the actual swim, but his bad swim cost him a bunch more time on the rest of the race. It is a subtle point that a lot of people miss. Good swimmers don't just gain time on you in the swim leg, they gain time on you in the rest of the race too because the swim was so much easier for them. It is one of the reasons I am always telling triathletes to swim more. Anyway, I digress, back to my point.
Given that the swim was not a lot of fun for Ken, what could he have done differently?
Well, Ken's main mistake is that he went out too quickly. People have this idea in their head that you are supposed to sprint the first part of a triathlon swim leg. You certainly can do that, but it really won't make you go quicker, if anything it will have the opposite effect. However, it is a very easy thing to do. Ken says that he got caught up in the moment and in the crowd and got carried away. That is pretty much the classic explanation. Ken went flat out for the first couple of minutes and really hit his red line. By the time he got to the first turn he was on his limit, but because he was swimming he found it hard to get enough air to bring himself back under control. While you are swimming it is very hard to recover, particularly if you are new to swimming. Once you feel you have hit your limit and can't recover then you are only a short step away from losing control of the swim.
So Ken could have gone out a bit slower. That doesn't mean he should have taken the swim easy, but rather he needed to take the first 100m a bit easier, given himself time to find his rhythm and get comfortable in the swim. Taking that first part a bit easier would have meant that he could have sustained a more even pace for longer and so ended up with a quicker time overall.
Another thing Ken could have done is more swimming with other people. This is quite an obvious one and it certainly would have helped, but it can be a bit hard to organise. Ken's lack of swimming with others wasn't due to a lack of will, but rather to logistical limitations. In the end I think it certainly would have helped, but I am not sure if would have made a significant difference either way. What caused Ken's problems was more to do with pacing awareness rather than panic because of the other bodies around him.
Another thing I tell people when they are new to swimming in a pack is to relax and concentrate on your rhythm and your breathing. When people get themselves in trouble on a swim leg it is usually because they feel like they are not getting enough air. If you aren't getting enough air it can make you panic, which in turn means you aren't getting enough air. You can see where this ends up. For this reason I tell people to just focus on what they are doing and settling into their swim for the first part of the swim leg. As they get more experienced and comfortable they can concentrate on going harder, but at the start I just want them focusing on getting themselves settled. All this is easy to say, but hard to execute and is something that becomes easier with experience. Ken and I had had these conversations, but as Ken found, they are much easier to talk about than to do.
Still, I think Ken got a lot of valuable learning from this swim. If nothing else he has done one now and knows what to expect, which will make preparation and finding his own rhythm that bit easier next time. He next big race is not for a month, so we now have time to really work on the elements of the swim that didn't work for him and make sure he is more comfortable and faster next time.
Onward and Upward.
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