When I found out about Swim Smooth, approximately one and a half years ago, I was amazed how informative this site was. It's full of information, videos and most importantly you can feel that these guys are passionate about swimming. The first thing I was super interested in was their Wetronome, a little device that functions as a pacemaker and gives you immediate feedback about your stroke-rate or pace. When I first tried it, I wasn't really sure whether I like it or not. It functions like a little dictator and beeps without mercy. It seems to me that the more you dislike it, the more you need to work on your stroke and rhythm. I guess everyone who plays an instrument agrees and knows the importance of practising with a metronome to develop rhythm -- and swimming is all about timing and rhythm. The downside of this is you need to be dedicated and start to build up your swimming from scratch (at least that's how it was for me). So I put it back in its box and it took another half a year before I gave it a second try. And now I love it! I also got myself one of their Ironman training plans to get ready for Ironman Cozumel, the race where I wanted to get the Kona qualification again -- and it worked. My swim time improved by 7:27min compared to my PR at Ironman Canada in 2010, and I also got rid of my shoulder pain that always kicked in on the last kilometre of the swim.
As you probably already know my goal is to finish Top 5 in my age group (M30-M34) this year in Kona. This is a very challenging goal and it will take up all my motivation and strength. That's why I am also looking for any support I can get along the way. And now, I was extremely happy to hear that Swim Smooth Head Coach Paul Newsome will give me a few pointers to help me improve my swim on the way to Kona.
Last Sunday a good friend of mine, Darren McGregor, took some video sequences of me in the pool and today it's already analysed! If you are interested to see what Paul thinks about my stroke and where I should improve have a look here:
Cheers!
Stefan
