I started swimming less than a year ago. Actually, I already knew how to tread water and not drown! As a young boy, my parents sent me to swim class. I remember giving up during the crawl lesson: water flooding my goggles, could not get to breathe properly, feeling insecure, panicking, ... All those memories came back once I decided giving a shot at triathlon. I should explain the train of events leading me to where I am right now but this is not the topic of this post!
Looking for speed
Once the first step of the long staircase of learning how to swim for a tri event was covered: breathing in the water, the next item on my list was getting faster in the water. Big red light! Now being a tri geek, I believe I have read anything on the topic! My reading made me understood speed comes with proper technique and what I needed, after mastering side breathing was working on my swim fitness. If you are not born swimmer, you first need to develop those swimming muscles/movements and imprinting them into your brain. You need to know exactly your position in the water. Then, you can move on to swim technique by working on drills.
Currently, my speed is stuck at around 2:11-2:18 min/100m which is poor. Once I will consistently swim around 2:00 min/100m, I could say I'd got on the 2nd step of the staircase.
