A visit to the local pool can often make us wonder when we see someone effortlessly gliding up and down the lane. How do they do that? Chances are that swimmer was a competitive swimmer as a child, but not always. Beth Potter advised me a few years ago not to waste my time trying to build swim improvement into the Tri Club juniors - just get them to join a swim club. Thankfully I ignored her and we have just had 2 more of our youngsters make the national squad - neither of whom have ever been at a swim club. Two youngsters swimming 1:50/100 now down to the 1:15/100 level. This, I think, is significant as over the last 5 years all of the other 8 that made the national squad all swam in clubs. Before I go on, there is no special sauce or magic bullet just the simple art of aquiring skill through purposeful, repetitive practice. In 1993 Swedish psycholgist Anders Ericsson conducted a study on elite violinists and found that each of them had accumulated around 10000 hours of practice by the time they were 20. The 10k rule was popularised in Malcolm Gladwells book ' Outliers' and he drew on examples from sport and other activities such as chess to further show the benefits of not just practice but purposeful, deliberate practice. Young swim club swimmers then lets say from age 8 start swmming. Typically they swim 5 or 6 days a week, often dong double days. That equates to 20-25k of swimming a week or say 8 hours of actual swim time. 50 weeks of the year by the time they are 18 years old that comes to only 4000 hours! As adults looking to improve to that level which is club level, not elite then to accumulate 4000 hours would take far longer than 10 years. Let's use me as a relatable example. I had never swam more than a length of a pool at any speed until I was 27. That feeling of exhaustion reaching the wall spent and out of breath after a single length, oh yes its etched in the memory. So what do we have to do to aquire higher skill levels? Practice on its own won't cut it as typically we have no idea what it is we are supposed to practice. We have to learn first what to practice then go do that purposefully. Practice on it's own doesn't make perfect - it makes permanent.

Here’s some numbers- Aberfeldy middle distance. Same athlete 62 this year. Times are for 3 consecutive years 2024-2026(today) Swim 35.33/ 35.43/ 38 Bike 2.46/ 2.52/ 2.55 Run 1.35/ 1.38/ 1.41 NP(bike) 238w/ 223w/ 219w Overall 5.02/ 5.13/ 5.21 Are these expected declines with age or does my ‘friend’ need to pay more attention to his coach and stop doing every session as Z3. Be as frank as you like………. Ta.

I was reminded of an old friend the other day when I saw a post on 'wild swimming' or as we know it...swimming. So here are a few definitions for non BS minded folk. Wild swimming = swimming Hybrid training = training Cold water therapy = swimming outside Hyrox = adult PE Espresso = coffee Americano = weak coffee Decaf = dishwater Polarised training = lots of easy shit and some proper hard stuff Anyone got any?

Used to be Feldy was the last scottish A race and we do have a gang taking part again. The other 3 races all now run on right up to October. Still time to bag a late season caper