Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Brenton Ford here. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. This episode is about having your breakthrough swim, whether it’s in a triathlon or an open water swim. My guest today is a friend of mine who I’ve coached for the last couple of years, but not so much recently. But he’s a recently turned pro triathlete and a couple of months ago he gave me a call and he was just asking about what he could do to help have a breakthrough swim and start making the second pack as a pro triathlete, making that second pack out of the water because like any ITU triathlete and like any pro triathlete, whether it’s sort of half Ironman, full distance Ironman, where you come out of the water it can’t make you win the race, but it can make you lose the race.

So with Paul he was sort of struggling to make that second pack and he was spending a lot of time on his own on the bike, which just makes it a long day out and it can also impact the speed that you go for the rest of the race. So he gave me a call and we basically just sort of went through what he was doing in his training that he might want to reconsider and change and add some things in and take some things out. So I think you’ll get a lot out of this episode if you are in the same situation that he was, which was a little bit frustrated with how he was going in his swim and just wanting to really have a breakthrough swim and come out of the water with a faster group so you’ve got a better chance of keeping up on the bike and then setting yourself up for a good race. So we cut to the conversation where Paul is talking about basically that conversation where we’re going through the things that he needed to consider in order to have that breakthrough swim.

Let’s get into it. To kick it off, can you just explain sort of like when you called me in, I think it was March that time, where were you mentally in terms of your headspace with your swim and mentally and I guess physically as well with your swim in terms of speed and out of the water in terms of the rest of the guys? Well, I wasn’t a long way back but I was enough not to be involved in the race with the other guys. Having a chase down on the bike is not easy at the best of times, let alone when they’re riding pretty quick. So my aim was to sort of get into that second pack just so I could ride with someone. It’s got the advantage of being able to pace with them and it makes the 90k a bit more interesting and tolerable I suppose to ride with someone as opposed to by yourself. And when you called me in March, you’re someone who I think the effort and putting in the training time and effort that’s never been a question.

I think with your swim it’s just been about finding that sort of right mix of the different types of training and that sort of thing and you were sort of when you called you, you seemed pretty frustrated with coming out of the water behind the second pack and having that bike right on your own. And so you were just called up and asked what do you think I need to do to make that second pack and what did you sort of find we identified just from that call? What did you change in your training? Well, going back to when I first started triathlon, I didn’t really swim as a kid. It’s not the biggest sport in the UK or anything like that. So I’m behind the eight ball from the start. When I phoned you, it was a question of the hours first rated. I think the initial swim speed. I’ve had it in the past, but something changed and it just wasn’t there anymore. And the times weren’t as sharp as they were. Swimming in the open water hasn’t never been an issue, but I couldn’t rely on that to get me with the pack.

So I think it was just the top end swim speed. So top end speed to get me into the swim pack pretty much from the beach to the first 100 meters. It was probably one of the most critical things that I needed to fix. And that’s an interesting point. That’s something that I was talking about with the last person I had on the podcast, which is Eni Jones. She’s a swim coach in Boulder in Colorado. And that’s what she was saying. The ITU guys, especially, if they haven’t got that top end speed to be able to stick with everyone for the first 100, 200 meters, then their day is done. And it’s not quite so much that in a half Ironman or an Ironman, someone like yourself who needs to get on the second pack can make a big difference to how the rest of your day unfolds. So I mean, one of the things we sort of looked at was the intensity that you were training at in all of your sessions. And I see this in so many people is that I used to do the exact same thing.

I used to train in the gray zone a lot where I’d do my sort of easy aerobic work too fast just because I like to go fast. And I thought that the harder I train, the better I would get. And that is true to a certain extent. But when you’re not in the right training zones to get the benefit of it, then you’re kind of stuck in this gray zone all the time. So can you talk about some of the changes that you made just in terms of what you’re doing in your workouts, the easy stuff, but also the sprint stuff that you started to add in? Yeah, so I kind of changed everything around after we talked. And it’s kind of funny because I do it with the running and this cycling all the time. And going to the gray zone, yeah, it’s not great to be in there. And I’ve always done the slow stuff in the faster fast. So that was the kind of aim I was going for with the sets. So I think one of the first ones I did, I think it was three lots of,

I can’t remember how many 25s he said to do, but it was more than I thought. And I got halfway through the second set and just gave up. I think I’ve been 20, 25s three times three or something. And I really smashed the first set and smashed myself so I couldn’t do the rest of it. So I started again and went to one set, did that properly. And then the next set I’d do the two sets and just building it up so I could know I could hold the pace and the proper pace that I wanted and the fast pace that I wanted as well. Because I was getting to the point where by the end of the second set it was the times were dropping off, which is not what I wanted. So once the clock ticked over, kind of where it was for the 25, maybe 17 or 18 seconds, then I would just back off and then just swim it. Swim easy just to cool down and then jump out. So I think this top end fast short stuff was a big change. Yeah, and I’ve got the set in front of me.

So I sent through a couple of just speed sets. That one you’re talking about was 20-25s on 40 seconds with 400 pull paddles recovery in between. And it was three times through. And this is one I got from a friend of mine and somebody coaches with this friend of mine, Mitch. And yeah, it’s just a good set just to kind of almost hit that pace that you may need to be at for the first like four or 500 meters in a race to go out with the group. And it’s kind of like it’s that funny distance where it’s like, you know, you can’t just go all out like you would for 100, but it’s still sort of fast enough that you’ve got to have a fair bit of intensity there, but it’s over the course of how long that set goes for like eight, nine minutes or something. And so it’s kind of a sustained pace and you sort of need that in the beginning of your half if you’re looking to stick with a certain group. And like that, yeah, it was good to see you start to do those sorts of sets.

And I think you’re doing those on your own because one of the things I also say a lot of is, and I’ve fallen into this trap so many times is when I’m training with a squad, I’m always like, I either don’t want to be caught by the person behind me or I just kind of push myself harder than I may need to for a particular set. And that’s one thing that we sort of, that we touched on when we were talking that phone conversation was that you’re doing a lot of stuff with squads, which is great. And I think that can really help you push yourself, but it also has a trap of going too hard in the easy stuff and also sometimes not getting enough rest for the speed work because depending on the squad, it might just be like, it might be going 25s on, let’s say it was 25 or 30 seconds and you just never get enough time to recover properly. And so, yeah, and so how many times a week were you or are you doing on your own at the moment?

What was it before you’re leading up to like Basso and Kent? I would do three squad sessions and then I’d do three sessions on my own. Possibly seven, if I’ve hit all my training during the week, I could even fit a seventh in on a Sunday. Yeah, so you’re really putting in the time and the effort to improve it. And that’s why I said I’d never question your work ethic when it comes to training. And like with Basso, so can you talk a little bit about what you wanted to achieve in overall for the race in terms of your time and what you did was an amazing time and also what you’re hoping to achieve in the swim in terms of where you’d like to stick? Yeah, so I targeted Basso pretty early on, it’s a renowned fast half Ironman course and I’ve been close to breaking four hours for the half Ironman and so I just went there purely with the idea of breaking that barrier but thinking to get the times down to be quick enough,

I had to get my swim down a fair bit to make the run easier to get through in the time. Getting out, one of the objectives was to sort of at least ride with at least one other person and I was pretty lucky in the race itself and did get into the second swim pack. Over the course of the season I had been getting faster. I’m always conscious of the pro women starting behind me and don’t really want to get in their way and over the course of the season I was getting passed by less of them, which is always nice and kind of showed that I was getting faster and then at Basso everything just clicked and somehow I got into the second pack. I’m really not sure how because it’s quite a long drag out to the first turn boy and normally having the turn boy early on helps with kind of spreads the pack a little bit I found feet pretty early on. I was pretty comfortable for the first sort of half of the race and keeping an eye on where everyone was and I had someone behind me as well

so if I did make a mistake and lose some feet I could always jump onto his feet and reassess where I was. The last 200 meters was probably one of the hardest 200 meters I’ve ever swam knowing that I was so close to show, knowing that I was so close to remaining in the pack this gave me that extra sort of bit of energy to hold on. I think I only ended up losing five seconds or so in the end so I made that up quite quickly on the run up the beach and into transition so managed to swim I think it was 25 or 25 and a half minutes for that which was probably my quickest swim I’ve done but it was certainly one of the most important swims I’ve done in a race And do you find that in a race, like a half Ironman distance race that you can really put the foot down in the swim and you’re going to work pretty hard but then because you can then just sort of settle the heart rate on the bike that you’re able to put in that effort on the swim because I think it was

Grant Giles who was speaking to he was talking about that where like he finds a lot of people don’t push themselves enough on the swim and the really good swimmers and the ones that often have a good race the ones that do sort of push it quite a bit on the swim because then you can just settle down on the on the bike and it’s a long day so like did you do that hard effort at the end affect the rest of your race at all? I think it might have affected my run towards the end I was speaking to a friend the other day and he mentioned this you can sort of over exit on the swim and it comes back to bite you on the run and I’d never heard of that before but I really struggled in the last 5k of the run and crawled over the line but the 4 hour marker was rapidly approaching me as I was getting towards the end of the run I think I only got it by 7 seconds in the end so having the intense swim didn’t affect the bike much

I still had a few seconds to gain had about 10 or 15 seconds to make up initially on the bike I knew that I had to do a fast bike to get near the fall but the bike being my strength I had to really play on that so it was either I don’t think it affected me but it wasn’t noticeable that it did It was really good to see you have that breakthrough race and breakthrough swim and like everything you’re not going to have every swim, every race isn’t going to be the best of your life but to be able to do that you know you can do it again and then you race cans which is a full distance line man about a month later and can you talk about how you went there in terms of your time and what the swim was like and the decision you decided to make in the swim and all that sort of stuff Yeah so I did cans at the end of the season just to test out the distance I came into the season with no real focus of doing an Iron Man half as bad enough in the first place

let alone the full one so I kind of just got in there and so we’d see what would happen I had another reasonable start which I was quite surprised by being quite short I’ve got to swim a fair bit further than everyone else but I got into the second pack again but at cans it was just a different level and the guys I was racing were doing what I would say at least half Iron Man pace for the double the distance so I realised pretty early on that it was going to be a struggle and with it being my first Iron Man in nine years I didn’t want to push the swim too much it was going to be nice and relaxed I didn’t know how far the bike was but I didn’t know how my body would react in the race so it must have been right after a K I didn’t turn out everything off but it was more of a steady state swim than anything else and I ended up leading the third pack into Transition One I think it was 57 minutes or something which was probably a bit slower than what I would have liked

but given that I was swimming solo it was probably a pretty good result in the end and so for someone who’s listening to this they might be in a similar mindset or situation with their swim time where they’re maybe a little bit frustrated with where they’re at what things would you have them look at in terms of their training or their race strategy what was it for you that helped you have that really good swim at Barso? It was just sitting down and assessing what swims I was actually doing it’s quite easy to turn up to a squad and do a set it depends on the set of course but you’re not thinking about what you’re doing you’re just either following the person in front or looking at the clock and just more often than not just trying to get through the set or even survive the set was sitting down and actually looking at what I was missing in my swimming or what I actually needed in my swimming I mean I was doing this for Insta

but probably not the quantity that I needed so actually sitting down and looking at what I was doing I think that’s… it can be so… not hard to do but it can be so easy to get stuck into the habit of just going about your training and just kind of going through the motions rather than sort of sitting down assessing how things are going what are you happy with what do you want to change and how do you feel like you’re going to take that next step with your racing and you know it’s like the… I think it’s the Stephen Covey saying it’s about sharpening the saw and I think that’s what’s sitting down assessing what you’re doing is all about so it’s… especially for someone like yourself where you’re putting in the effort so yeah it can just be about taking that bird’s eye view that broader picture of things so it was really good to see you have that swim and I’m excited to see how you go over the next six, twelve months

and onwards and yeah and see you continue to comfortably get into that second pack and swimming is a very long term all sport it’s a very long term approach that you’ve got to have to it because it’s not going to happen in the space of one or two weeks and I know you’ve been doing the sport for a while now and to get under that four hour mark to get under that nine hour mark is pretty incredible and it’s been awesome to see you do that and I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do in the future yeah it’s been… it’s good I’ve had four weeks off now the times are drifted away a little bit and coming back I’m a bit worried about how to get the speed back but it’s just having the confidence of knowing that I’ve done it before and hopefully I can get it back again yeah I remember when you were training with the squad I was coaching I can’t remember how many weeks you had off was it like eight or twelve weeks or something

and it was like winter speedy and then it took you I know a couple of months to get rid of I don’t know how many kilos you lost but it was quite a few but then you slim down you’re a race fit and you’re back to normal but there’s nothing wrong with I think having that it’s kind of a roller coaster of fitness and weight and all that sort of stuff like it’s… for me I sort of I kind of need that in winter as my training slows down and sometimes eat a little bit worse but then I get it back on track after a few weeks of just going oh my god I feel like rubbish and I really need to eat some better food and then I get back on track and it’s all good but sometimes you need that like need that period of where you don’t do much and to actually realise oh I don’t like the feeling of this I want to start getting fit again yeah it’s been this I’ve yeah I’ve put on a little bit of weight I think seven kilograms was the result this year

and oh it has to be done you can’t go through the entire season or year after year of just focusing on what you’re eating and your weight it can all come off in the end and as long as it’s as long as it’s planned well not planned but as long as it’s achievable to come off before race day then it’s fine so I’ve got about five months to lose seven kilograms again so I’m pretty confident I can do that and it would go against your English heritage wouldn’t it to not have a few drinks in the off season yeah it’s been pretty bad not as bad as going home to the UK for four weeks and catching up with everyone on a daily basis but it’s been a pretty good winter and it’s definitely a lot colder down here so the extra layer the extra layer I’ve got on me is helpful yeah it’s a good way to justify it isn’t it completely yeah blame it on the cold awesome well thanks thanks for that Speedy and I’m sure we’ll catch up soon and appreciate your sharing

what you’ve gone through in the last couple of months and how you’ve gone about improving your swimming I think it’s helpful for a lot of people so I appreciate it, thank you yeah thanks Brenton and cheers for the advice and certainly wouldn’t have got the results if it wasn’t for the sort of timely words of encouragement to get me across the line yeah cheers and I know what I played was a very small part and you’ve got good coaches working with you too and it all comes down to the effort that you put in so it’s yeah it all comes down ultimately to yourself so thank you very much and we’ll catch up soon cheers Brenton