Just get in the water – Keep’er Fit

The past few months, I have been swimming twice a week in the pool with the Omagh Tri Club and enjoying it. It’s excellent training again with a team pushing each other along and getting the odd gentle nudge at my feet to ensure I’m not slacking in the water.

When I look back at where I started just over two years ago before lockdown, I was only able to swim two lengths and had to stop because I was out of breath due to my breathing technique or, more so, lack off.

Lucky, I had my sister and brother-in-law to give me a few coaching tips, and soon I was able to swim four lengths. The week after was six, then eight and finally 10 was a marker that I knew I could go for a decent distance at a slow and controlled pace.

Then my son and I started to hit the pool once it opened after lockdown. He was swimming 30/40 lengths for fun in most sessions! We still had a bit of craic messing around while we rested, but it was great just to set a target before we went to the pool and go and achieve it.

The next step for me was to join the Tri club sessions on a Monday and Wednesday. In the beginning, I was way down in the bottom lane, and it was perfect for me. All the sessions were laid out for you, and you just followed the program on the sheet. Week after week, I started to improve and slowly moved up the lanes. I was enjoying the sessions and starting to see progress. One night I asked Michael, the coach, how could I improve my technique. He said, ‘Just get in the water’ it was as simple as that.

For the level of swimming I wanted to achieve, it is simply a matter of getting into the water consistently.

When I look back at all the progress, the main thing that sticks out is consistency. When I started, I went to the pool each week and just aimed to improve small bits at a time. Then the sessions I did with my son, followed by sessions with the Tri Club.

If you want to improve on any aspect of your health, fitness and life, you must be consistent, especially on the days that you don’t want to do it. The importance of choosing a goal and just consistently showing up can’t be underestimated.

Another thing that matches up and helps keep your constant is accountability. Being accountable to yourself is one thing but being responsible to someone else helps take you to a new level. You don’t have to take it to extremes either. At the beginning of my swimming journey, I was accountable to myself to progress from two to four lengths, then accountable to my sister and brother-in-law.

Even sharing with them my progress helped me to keep moving forward.

Then it was my son. We held each other accountable by setting targets before we entered the pool. Now it’s the Tri Club. The simple thing of sending a text message to say ‘put my name down for the session on Monday and Wednesday’ holds me accountable and more likely to train.

No matter what you want to achieve, firstly, believe you can achieve it, keep showing up and just get into the water.

By Gary Wallace