The triathlon swim is the one that gets most people; you might be able to run 5k in under 18 minutes or do 20k
in just over 32mins, but if you cannot do the front crawl with proper breathing techniques then you will lose a lot of time.
Winter is a great time to get your core fitness back and work on the things that you are poor at like swimming. If you are like me and you could swim but badly then you need to get lessons, it is very hard to do the right things by yourself. The problem with getting swimming lessons I find is that a lot of the guys that do the lessons are not really that good at teaching swimming; in fact my first teacher could barely swim 2 lengths of a 25 metre pool. And after a few lessons, He told me that my technique was perfect, which was far from the truth. My advice is to try and get a good swimming instructor.
I gave up the swimming lessons and joined a swimming club; although I was poor at the start the instructor was excellent. I improved very quickly in a few weeks. So my advice is to:
1. Get swimming lessons
2. But try to locate a good swimming coach. Ring your local swimming club
3. Join a swimming club, even if just for the winter months, this is were you will improve the most.
Try and get to the pool maybe 3-4 times a week if even only for a few months. You will work new muscles
that you have not worked before, and although for the first month or so you might be sore you will soon get used to swimming.
Start out slowly and try and improve your technique before your distance or speed, as with bad technique you are only using more effort to get to each end of the pool. Also if your event is say 750 metres or 30 lengths of the pool. Do not swim 30 lengths of the pool every time you train. As you body will become accustomed to it and you will not see much improvement, the best way you can improve is to do sets, this will improve your speed to. If you are swimming in a club you will more than likely be doing this, an example of a set would be:
300 metre 12 lengths. 1min rest 70% effort
2* 200 metre 8 lengths 1min rest 75% effort
2*100 metres 4 length 80% effort
2* 50 metre 2 lengths 90%
2* 25 metres 1 length 100% all out effort
Again you will need to change the sets to help yourself improve
One of the biggest problems with swimmers is their choice of goggles. I have been threw so many brands, had so many leaks. Nowadays a lot of triathletes are using the Aquasphere range of Goggles, they do masks, normal goggles and tinted versions for open water swimming.
If you are serious about swimming then I would advice you to look into getting a pair of these AquaSphere Goggles! In Regards to the triathlon circuit the AquaSphere range are nearly the norm now for triathlons, also nearly every member in my club uses them.