I love tri’s and running and biking, but I hate swimming. Anyone else have this problem? I hate pool swimming,it’s boring, the chlorine kills my skin, my goggles always fill with water and burns my eyes, etc… I tried river swimming which was better, but I quickly got bored with it as well. What can I do to help my swim motivation? I’m going to start swimming again after Christmas and I’m not looking forward to lap after lap.
I’m not looking for the “suck it up and do it” because I’m going to anyway. I’m just looking for ways to make it more enjoyable. Thanks.
When you ride or run, do you have a specific route you try to PR on a regular basis? You should do the same in the pool. Choose standard distances and try to best your times at them. 100, 200, 500, 1k swims are good distances to track yourself. Also swimming with others… make up relay teams and race each other. You rest while teammate swims. Do something like each swims 50 yards x 10 all-out effort.
Swim with other people. Whether it be a masters group or just one of your buddies. It won’t take away the dreaded, “damn, I don’t want to jump into a cold pool right now!” feeling, but it will make the workout MUCH easier once you get started.
If you live close to an ocean, take up surfing. I was a swimmer when I was young, took 15 years off from triathlons, did one last year with no training, and had the second fastest swim overall. I surfed regularly, so take that for what it’s worth.
Have some cheese with your whine & keep blowing off the pool. Then when guys like me put 10 minutes on you over 1500m & you have to blow up on the bike to catch up, I’ll cruise on in with fresher legs on the run while you Weeble-Wobble to the finish line.
It’s called a triathlon for a reason. Take some lessons, private & group, & then join a masters program.
I’ll take the black line fever over being hamster on a treadmill or stationary bike any day of the week.
I love tri’s and running and biking, but I hate swimming. Anyone else have this problem? I hate pool swimming,it’s boring, the chlorine kills my skin, my goggles always fill with water and burns my eyes, etc… I tried river swimming which was better, but I quickly got bored with it as well. What can I do to help my swim motivation? I’m going to start swimming again after Christmas and I’m not looking forward to lap after lap.
I’m not looking for the “suck it up and do it” because I’m going to anyway. I’m just looking for ways to make it more enjoyable. Thanks.
Maybe you should take a close look at some of the replies in THIS THREAD. I think your solution is already there, waiting.
Go to a swimming specific, or tri specific shop and ask about three things:
New goggles. I’m fond of my Swedes.
A chlorine specific shampoo, conditioner and body soap.
A swimming coach or program and work on doing interesting sets rather than doing long slow boring 1k swims. You could aso try these work outs: NTC Masters Swimming Workouts
I totally agree. Open water swimming isn’t bad, but around here (Charleston SC) it’s either sharks or gators. So the pool is it.
I’m tired of being good on the bike and run, but lousy in the swim, so this winter I’m actually going to get some lessons, start swimming with the masters, and DO SOMETHING about my lousy swim times.
On the bike and run, I put in some real effort. In the pool , I just swim steady laps…no pushing to the point of being uncomfortable. Maybe it’s time to get uncomfortable?
I may still hate it, but I swear I’m going to get faster.
x 10 on masters. A year ago today I hated to swim, rarely did it and sucked at it. Started masters last January and after about 2 months started to like swimming (masters chicks help) and by summer I loved swimming. Now I just suck a little bit less and swim 4x per week.