Racing Calm – Some Advice.

Race morning. Your big event. You’re excited and nervous. The gun fires. You start quickly. You follow others. It feels easy and manageable … until it doesn’t.

You are surrounded by other swimmers. You are breathing heavily. You are starting to tire but you’ve only done 300m and have lots more swimming to do. You start to doubt yourself. You panic.

What now?

You need to regain control. You need to control your breathing. Reduce your heart rate and reduce your demand for oxygen. What do you do?

👉 Reduce your leg kick. This helps bring heart rate down and reduces the perceived effort.

👉 Make sure you exhale fully. You don’t need (or want) to hold your breath, instead relax and release the air. Try to ‘sigh’ your breath out – rather than blowing forcefully.

👉 Breathe every two strokes to maximise oxygen intake.

👉 Control your stroke rate. Often this means slowing your stroke down a little. Controlled rather than frantic.

👉 Take your mind out of the situation (the chaos) and focus on your swimming. Think about each stroke. Perhaps count strokes. Doing this makes you focus on what you’re doing rather than the chaos of the swim.

All of this will help you settle and re-establish your swim rhythm. Once you’ve settled, you can then get on with – and enjoy – the rest of the race.

If you’ve experienced this, do you have any other tips? Anything that’s worked for you?