Triathlon Budget Priority List

How high on your priority list is improving your triathlon swim performance? Consider your ‘triathlon budget’ before answering this question. When you are budgeting your triathlon spend in a season, what do you think of?

✅ Race entry fees?
✅ New bike?
✅ Bike fit?
✅ Bits and pieces for your bike?
✅ A new aero helmet?
✅ An updated Garmin?
✅ Other bits of kit?
✅ Triathlon coaching?
✅ Training camps?

That could amount to thousands and thousands of pounds.

❎ How much do you allocate for improving your swim? Anything?

If this season has taught me anything, it is how much improvement you can make in the swim with just a relatively small investment of time and money.

🎉 A swim video analysis session with me is £50. One of these sessions has taken minutes off some of our athletes times. You would pay £1,500-£2,000 on a pair of fast wheels to achieve the same gains!

🎉 One athlete improved his 1000m swim by almost four minutes after one 1-1 session with me. That’s a 15 minute saving on an Ironman swim. A new bike, several bike fits, ceramic bearings and the best aero race kit couldn’t get you that! He made that improvement by spending £30 and 1 hour of his time.

🎉 An athlete was staring at a 2 hour Ironman swim until he invested £200 into 7 1-1 swim sessions. He exited the water in 1.21. 40 minutes difference. I’m not sure he could have found a 40 minute improvement in seven hours of time and £200 spent elsewhere.

🎉 An athlete couldn’t swim more than 400m in May, attended regular coached group sessions and in September, came out of the water in ironman Wales in 1.18. That’s £120-£150 in swim coaching – perhaps the difference in finishing and not finishing? Certainly 30 minutes quicker than if he’d continued on his own path.

So, when you’re weighing up what you could do to improve your triathlon performance next season, don’t forget about your swim – and some of the great improvements you can make there! Don’t go it alone, get some help, bring in some expertise to help you make a real breakthrough with your swim this season. It’ll be the best money you spend – and the best return on investment you’ll find.