The one with the Swimming Lesson

The day started off like any typical Saturday morning. Buzzing alarm woke me up and I stumbled downstairs to get my overnight oats. It was 05:00am and I needed to be out early to go for a run with my buddy Sam and his boys. The plan was for me to run to Sams house and he would join for a lap of the golf course route before he peeled off as we passed back past his house and I would continue a second lap back to home. The run started off well and just got better, I’m now at the point where I’m starting to really enjoy my ‘long runs’ which consist of longer duration but at a lower heart rate. When I left Sam and his boys to go home I got into a steady rhythm and really got lost in my music. Before I knew it I was back near home but still needed to run for another ten min (I run on duration not distance) so I did a lap of our estate.

So, I had a bit of anxiety trying to get my swimming in order. Firstly, I don’t like water, hate dipping my head in the water and am not a very confident swimmer. When I started this journey the plan had always been to cover the swimming through coaching with my friend who runs Splashing Stars. However I hadn’t accounted for Covid-19. My swimming was scheduled to start in June however the pools have been shut since March.

Well last weekend Boris announced that some pools that jumped through certain hoops could reopen. However Splashing Stars wasn’t able to open for many complicated issues. This meant that I had an incredibly tough decision to make. I really wanted to have my lessons with my friend in their pool – but couldn’t wait until it opened. I needed to make a tough decision. After talking to them I decided to try and find alternative coaching provision. Problem was not many pools were open. Very few of the open ones were taking on new lessons. However there was one in Derby. David Lloyd was the venue and Chris was the teacher. I spoke to Chris and told him my plans – he took it onboard and said he had capacity to start training right away.

With the 13th September date looming for my sprint triathlon I needed to move fast if I was to meet my goals. Chris seemed on my wavelength and new what my goals were. Ironically, it turns out that him and Zoe (my coach) already knew each other and were friends.

So after signing up for membership to the Gym I went for my first lesson. Upon arrival I introduced myself to the coach and we discussed what we were going to do in the first session. The first swim was to show him a what I could already do so he could ascertain where I was at. I started with 2 lengths of breaststroke and then moved on to front crawl. Now, one of the things I don’t like is dipping my head in the water and trying to breathe. Guess what I’ll be working on the next few weeks :-).

My niece kindly gave me some floats and stuff to borrow. They were to be used during the session. There were two main floats we used. The out front float which I held in my hand to practice my footwork and the pull buoy to practice my arm stroke. Immediately it became obvious I wasn’t very good at kicking as my feet sank and I struggled with the arm work as was missing strength. But as I said, it was first lesson so to be expected. We then tried to put them together and something magical happened. I was doing it, swimming front crawl and not going too slow (from my perception).

There is a lot to remember. I need to remember to not swallow as much water – this was me panicking and rushing in places. Chris was really pleased with how it went and gave lots of encouragement which was great to hear. 6 weeks to Etwall Sprint Tri – it feels like the missing piece of the jigsaw has fell into place.