Depending on numbers, we will either be staying in the EVL clubhouse or at a nearby campsite. Costs will not be high. We aim to have a beach party and BBQ on the Saturday evening too.

Parents, and siblings will be welcome too. We will aim to involve them as much as they wish – and they can always go and do some shopping if they prefer.

PLEASE TELL YOUR INSTRUCTOR IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME AND WHO WILL BE WITH YOU.

More details will emerge when we know how many people there will be!

It seemed like a great idea down the pub… One of your mates said he was taking part to raise money for a really worthwhile charity, and now you’re lumbered. You’ll look a right wimp if you don’t have a go, only you’ve just discovered how far you’ve got to swim and there’s a little problem… you’ve NEVER, EVER swum THAT far before!

Ok. Let’s not panic shall we? Once you can swim 200m you can swim almost any distance, it’s more about time and comfort. Most ‘beginners’ triathlons involve a 750m swim. That’s 30 lengths of a 25m pool or, as competitive swimmers would say it’s “15 sets of 2 [lengths]“. See, it almost sounds achievable like that!

Most triathlon swims are in open-water, which adds a little complexity, though quite a few novice events are in lidos and similar places where the pool may even be 50m. That said, most of your training is likely to be in a 25m pool.

Let’s start by being realistic… You probably won’t be in the first 25% of competitors by the end of the swim. In fact, our goal is more for you to finish the first leg (the swim) without a nagging script running in the back of your head saying; “You idiot, why on earth did you agree to this? You’re going to die!” We want you to finish calmly, with plenty of energy in reserve to go on and complete the next two legs without the swim having had a bad effect on you. Believe me, that will still put you ahead of a fair few of your competitors!

We’ll work on a target time of between 20 and 25 minutes for the swim. That’s going to be your ‘nirvana’ for the training, at least. Of course, there will be faster swimmers. But they’ve been training for years and you’ve only just begun. But there will also be slower swimmers. The qualifying time for a beach lifeguard is 400m in 8 minutes and I know a lot who struggle to make that, so to do 750m in 15 minutes is going some. As I said, the whole idea is for you to arrive calm and confident so that you can do well in the next two legs – the ride and the run.

I want you to do a reasonably quick 2 lengths and time yourself. If you are close to the 1 minute then you’re obviously fit and are actually quite a good swimmer. If you are close to the 2 minutes, then you have more work to do, but a 25 minute swim would not be impossible – especially if you had some one-to-one coaching. Hopefully, this has set an expectation, given you a few benchmarks, so you’re not swimming ‘blind’ if nothing else.

I am not going to focus on technique here – I write on that elsewhere. What I want to do is give a few tips for training, and a schedule that you could follow. Remember: my aim is for you to be able to finish calmly and with plenty of energy in reserve.

We are NOT therefore going to focus on swimming the 750m for the time being. Instead, we’re aiming for 1250m swims. I know it isn’t a common distance, and I realise it might sound bizarre to go so much further, but if you can complete 1250m calmly and with some energy left, then you’ll be even better on the shorter 750m.

1250m is 50 lengths of a 25m pool. Again, that’s ONLY 25 sets of 2.

I don’t know how much time you have before the big event, but I’ll assume it’s a couple of months – eight weeks to be more precise. I am also going to assume that you’re busy and can only foresee the possibility of swimming once or occasionally twice a week.

Here’s your schedule of distances:

Week 8 – 600m (= 24 lengths) – One long swim – focus on length, roll, minimal kick, and breathing
Week 7 – 800m (= 32 lengths) – 4 blocks x 200m – focus on length, roll, minimal kick, and breathing – all MEDIUM PACE
Week 6 – 1000m (= 40 lengths) – 4 blocks of 250m – first 200m at MEDIUM PACE, last 50m at FAST PACE, rest to normal {M 200m, F 50m, REST} x 4
Week 5 – 1200m (=48 lengths) – {M 200m, F 50m, M 50m, REST} x 3 + 200m MEDIUM
Week 4 – 1250m (=50 lengths) – M 400m, F 100m, REST, M 200m, F 75m, REST, M 200m, F 75m, M 200m
Week 3 – 1250m (=50 lengths) – M 400m, F 100m, REST, M 200m, F 75m, M 200m, F 75m, M 200m
Week 2 – 1250m (=50 lengths) – M 400m, F 100m, REST, M 200m, F 75m, M 200m, F 75m, M 200m
Week 1 – 750m (=30 lengths) – M 300m, F 100m, M 100m, F 100m, M 100m, F 50m
THE TRI

A few explanations…

Medium pace (M) is a pace that you could keep up for a reasonably long distance, where you are not out of breath when you finish.

Fast pace (F) is going to leave you a little breathless but you can recover quite quickly.

Rest means waiting until your breathing is normal again.

If you get a chance to swim a seond time in the week, then repeat the routine from the PREVIOUS week.

So, let’s explain one of these weeks so you can understand the schedule. In week 6 (that’s after a couple of weeks of training) you are going to swim a total of 1000m (1k sounds a bit easier). You’re not going to simply get in the water and swim. Instead you will do so in four blocks of 250m – after each of which you’ll rest and recover. For the first 200m (8 lengths of 25m or 4 sets of 2 lengths) you are going to swim at that medium pace, then you’re going to have a little busrt of two lengths (ie 50m) at a faster pace. Stop and hang around in the corner of the lane until your breath has recovered. (If you want to look cool, lift your goggles, and look as if you’re measuring your pulse.) Then repeat the process three more times.

Once you’ve done the 1k, you’ll have turned a huge corner in your training. If someone can swim 200m they can swim almost anything. Once someone can swum 1000m they could even build up to cross-channel distance. Certainly, you’ll be able to go on holiday and swim a decent distance along the beach. (When swimming long-distances at the seaside, always do so parallel to the shore and ideally in chest height water – it is MUCH safer to do so and means that you can then strut your stuff back all along the beach!)

I hope this has helped. Why not let me know? Send me a message – I’d like to know how you get on. I shall be writing more tips for the longer distance swimmer, aspiring triathletes and potential lifeguards over the next few weeks.

Graham Wilson
graham@life-saving.net

Good luck
Graham.

Lifesaving is growing in popularity;

• It’s a pretty good way of fulfilling the service aspect of the Duke of Edinburgh Award, that it can count towards the GCSE PE.
• It’s impressive on University and college ‘personal statements’.
• There’s a boom in competitive sport-lifesaving.
• It opens the door to a job (full- or part-time) as a pool lifeguard…
• …as a beach lifeguard.
• And you can also just do it for fun.

Adults often take up lifesaving as it’s a low impact way of getting some exercise, can build up your fitness and confidence considerably, lets you share in a sport with your kids, can continue to be done into your 90s (we kid you not!), is an opportunity to dramatically improve your swimming (even though you barely need to swim to get started)…

Oh heck, there’s loads of reasons why – just give us a call and give it a try!

If you are a bit of a ‘shaper’, able to be a bit outgoing, and aged 15+, and want to get involved in bigger stuff, then this is the place to be.

If so, then the Branch will GLADLY pay for you and make sure you get there and back.

Oh, did I mention the disco?

This year’s event is at Wokefield Park, in Reading, from the 11th to 12th June.

More info: ask Alison or Graham.

With a good stroke, you can swim further, emerge more relaxed, enjoy quieter parts of the beach, impress the girlfriend, amaze the kids, and maybe one day be a better rescuer.  So here’s a few tips and hints to improve your crawl.

1. Get a proper pair of trunks or a one piece cossy.  Seriously, no-one ever won a major event, swam the channel or rescued a ship-wrecked mariner (well you know what we mean), wearing a pair of shorts that come down to the thigh, let alone below the knee.  Wearing the right stuff adds to the experience.
2. Buy (and obviously use) a pair of goggles.  You CANNOT swim front crawl without putting your face in the water and, unless you’re really unusual, you can’t see properly without goggles.  Even if you claim you can see, then that’s only because you’ve just opened your eyes from the pain of the salt water!  Why be a masochist?  [More hints on buying goggles to follow.]
3. Begin in the pool – it’s usually a lot easier to stand up as there’s fewer waves.
4. The power in front crawl comes from the arms.  The arm action should be smooth, rythmic, without lots of effort – ie NO WINDMILLS.
5. The legs merely serve to keep the body flat.  They DO NOT add anything significant to the power.  So..  NO SPLASHING!  Keep your feet trailing behind you with the occasional flutter just to keep the body flat.
6. Splashing of ANY kind is ineffective and inefficient.Splash happens when a body part (legs, arms and head are the main culprits) go backwards and forwards between the water and the air.  Splash indicates that something is wrong.  The energy that goes into creating the splash is wasted energy – it does nothing to help you move through the water.
7. The ideal body position is almost flat in the water an inch or two below the surface.  Lots of people let their legs sink – usually because they get tired from kicking too much.  When their legs sink, they bend at the hips or at the top of the thighs.  Keep FLAT.  Practice by pushing off from the side and gliding as far as you can – that will be the right body position to try to maintain throughout.
8. The longer length of the body, the faster it goes.  If you want to sail a faster yacht, you get a longer one.  If you want to swim faster (or for less effort) you get a longer body… Well, you elongate the one you’ve got.  For a prolonged part of the stroke, you legs should be straight, your hips straight, your chest straight, your head and neck tall, and one of your arms stretched ahead of you just under the water surface too.
9. The longer the body is long, the faster it goes.  Sounds a bit odd this one, but the longer that you have one or other arm outstretched, the faster you’ll be.  When there’s not an arm ahead of you then the body will be presenting a less streamlined shape to the flow of water past it.  Less streamlining = loss of speed.  So the aim is for the arms to swap over smoothly but with the minimum amount of time where neither is ahead of you.  You can practice this with a drill known as catch-up, where you only recover one arm when the other hand has caught up with the leading one on each stroke.
10. The power of the glide.  OK if you’re competing you may not glide as long, but for the rest of us, there’s a LOT of benefit from having a long glide.  After each arm has pulled back, recovered, and is in the leading position, there should be a pronounced glide.  In the glide, you get the benefit from the power of the arm action.
11. The power of the arms is in the recovery.  When you pull with your arm under the body to pull yourself through the water, you’re using a complex set of levers to get the maximum power from the pull.  But the thing that gives you most power is the distance that the arm pulls through.  So the most important contributor to the power is not the pulling power of the arms but the extent to which you extend them at the end of the recovery.

TO BE COMPLETED…