Patience First. Speed Later.

One of the hardest things to coach in swimming isn’t technique.

It’s patience.

Many swimmers instinctively start too hard. Not because they’re trying to impress anyone, but because it feels productive, feels like the right thing to do. It feels like they’re working. Last night, we discovered that sometimes the fastest, smoothest, most sustainable swimming begins by deliberately starting slower.

Yesterday’s Swim Squad wasn’t about surviving another set of 100s.

It was about learning patience.

The patience to start easier than you think you should, to make small changes in effort rather than big ones, and to trust that your best swimming doesn’t have to happen in the first five minutes.

Instead of grinding through rep after rep at the same pace (which we also like to do from time to time), we built the effort through the session.

After a thousand metres of warming up, we went into the main set.

5 × 100 @ 5/10

5 × 100 @ 6/10

5 × 100 @ 7/10

5 × 100 @ 8/10

Then one final challenge (a bonus set?)…

5 × 100 @ 7/10.

The goal wasn’t just to work hard. It was to finish by swimming well after fatigue had built throughout the session.

That meant patience early on and courage later.

The feedback afterwards was brilliant:

“I focused on my stroke.”

“Small changes in effort made a big difference.”

“I stayed relaxed early on.”

“I finished feeling strong.”

The biggest lesson was patience. The confidence to start easier than you think you should, knowing there is still plenty of swimming to come.

But there were other lessons too. Learning that pace has gears, and that you don’t need huge jumps in effort to swim noticeably faster. Discovering what a sustainable pace really feels like. And practising the discipline of holding onto good technique, even when fatigue makes it tempting to let it go.

Patience first. Courage when it matters.

Bryan