Why pool swim in summer?

With the warm weather of May and June, the outdoor swimming season has exploded and my own pool swimming schedule has become a bit spotty. I used to ask myself why I would ever swim in a pool when I could frolic in the open water and sun and weather with friends instead? Alas, there are big advantages to keeping some of your training to the pool and I'll give you two reasons here to frequent the pool each week, in combination with your fabulous weekly open water swims. 

The first reason is to sharpen your technique. Each week, when you kick off your swimming, it's good to start with relearning what you already know and work on the elements that fall apart when you get tired. A full-on dedicated swim session devoted to focused breathing (read exhaling), feel for the water, rhythm, proper kick form, catch, pull and finish will help you tune into your best swim form for for all the swims that follow. It's also a great easy session to wake up your intentions for the week. While you COULD do a technique session in the open water, it's a bit harder to store all of your toys without them washing away, while staying purposeful in your swims.

The second reason for visiting the pool in summer is that spending focused time each week on specific threshold pace is critical to maintaining and developing your speed. In the open water, with friends, it is much harder to judge your own pacing. In the parameters of the pool, threshold pacing is measurable and specific, especially when you combine it with your Critical Swim Speed (CSS) pace and a Finis Tempo Trainer beeper in your cap. In the pool there's no skipping out on the work at hand. And once this session is in the bag for the week, you can carry this sense of pacing into your open water swims. Nothing could be better. 

Swimming with friends in a squad for these sessions makes the time go by like a breeze and allows you to focus only on the task at hand. Let me help you discover the perfect tune up and threshold work for you.

I'll see YOU in the pool soon!