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“If I were to write a book, this would be the book that I’d write.” That’s the first line I wrote in my journal when I decided to turn a workbook I had developed for my coaching clients into a book. For years, I’d wanted to write a book. It was a story I wanted to tell…

Pretty simple here. This is just good, hard swimming. There is ample rest after each 100, so use it wisely, especially as the number of 100s increases. We often find easy sculling or double-arm backstroke to the middle of the pool and back a great way to actively recover rather than just hanging on the wall, letting your muscles seize. In an ideal world, you’ll…

We were just home for the holidays. It was the first time my entire family had gotten together in over two years. As is natural during these kinds of gatherings, we had lots of catching up to do. At one point my sister-in-law came over to me and told me that she and my brother were signed up for a half marathon in March. I was thrilled. I love it when people go after hard things…

I write a lot about goals. I also write a lot about the process. I believe setting a BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOAL—and then continuing to do that over and over after you see the first one through—is one of the most important things you can do in life. Doing so can help you tell the story you want to be telling—the one you know...

The Pre-Set is designed to draw your attention to your kick timing. When swimming freestyle, you should aim for a 6-beat kick: complete 6 kicks per stroke cycle. The first kick—ONE—is a strong down kick that should be timed with the opposite arm entry. For example, the right leg (ONE) would kick…

The Pre-Set is designed to increase your heart rate while also helping you find your goal 500 pace (P500). In distance swimming, it’s easy to focus on your 100 times—it makes logical sense. However, when swimmers do this, they often slip into pacing that is slower than their goal pace. By the time they hit the 100 marks…

Setting an ambitious goal can be so damn easy. Staying on the path to relentlessly chase after that goal, though, can be so damn challenging. And therein lies the deception of goals: we anticipate the goal-chasing process to be as streamlined from the outset as the goal-setting process. The goal-chasing process, though, is…

The primary Goal of the Main Set is to work on descending pacing throughout the 400s. In total, you’ll swim five 400s; however, 400s #2-#4 are broken up to develop your descending pacing for the final full 400. This workout is designed to encourage mindful swimming with intense focus on pacing…

Identifying your BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOAL is, obviously, an important part of starting to tell the story you’ve always wanted to tell. But, it’s only the first part. While this process takes take, in many ways, setting your goal is often the easiest part. Transforming your BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOAL into a BIG GOAL and achieving it is about taking action…

I knew the result before I asked. “Were you bib number 48?” I nodded. “I’m gutted for you, man! We had to disqualify you.” The night before the race, as my wife and I were sitting on the balcony of our hotel, eating our boxed up dinner from the little Italian restaurant we had to abruptly leave because our 10-month old son had passed his witching hour, I got a text message from my coach…

A BIG, SCARY, HAIRY GOAL is a funny thing. They’re so easy to set. Pursuing them, though, can leave you feeling like you’re drowning. When the going gets tough, it’s too easy to remind yourself that safety is at the shore of the story you’ve always been telling. All you have to do is…

The Main Set is comprised of 6 Rounds with the goal being to match your 200 IM Target Time each Round on the Build-An-IM. Each Round, progressively add in an additional 25 of a 200 IM. The goal is to match you Target Time each Round.

“Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a fiction book!?!” I can’t remember if I picked his book up to see what it was about. I just remember walking out almost immediately after, completely abandoning my effort to find a new book. I’m obsessed with books. I love consuming what other people create. I love being…

It's a silly workout. It’s long. It’s hard. It’s boring. It’s monotonous. And, I love it. Well, in line with Tony Horton, “I hate it…but I love it.” I made the announcement in the early part of November that our Masters swim team, T2 Aquatics in Naples, FL, would be doing the 2nd “Annual” 100 X 100 Thanksgiving workout…

I got the email on Sunday night: “We’ve been watching the developing Topical Storm Eta, and we have decided that we intend to be open tomorrow morning. As we continue to monitor, it may be such that you hear from us again before morning. If we need to cancel, we will send you an email by 4:45am…

I came across Mark Twain’s quote the other day and smiled. I’d seen it before, but sometimes we need to see, hear, or experience something multiple times—or at different points in our lives—before it has an impact on us. I’ve worked through a lot of anxiety in my life. Anxiety that resulted from imagining “terrible things in my life.” And that’s the insidious nature of anxiety…

In November of 2018, I was having a conversation with my then girlfriend — now wife— as we were sitting at a tiny kitchen table in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in St. Paul, MN. We had both recently completed our first Ironman triathlon — a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run — and we were in a bit of a searching period. We didn’t know how to fill our days or what to chase after. “What’s your next Ironman?” I asked her…

This is a question that I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. I have tendency to choose the easy path. I’d much rather put something off. I prefer to coast. And what I’ve finally realized—and its only taken 41 years to figure out—is that choosing…

The pattern of the Main Set is as follows: 4 X 25 IM order swim by round, 4 X 25 IM order kick by round, 4 X 50 freestyle drill, 200 freestyle. The goal of the set is to find a 200 pace during a fully broken 200 (8 X 25 with flip) and then hold that pace throughout the set as you build up to a full 200 freestyle.

Nothing fancy here; just lots of leg work, which is easy to neglect as so much focus in swimming goes into stroke technique. The goal here is to alternate between fast kick and recovery kicking while progressively increasing the distance of the fast kicking. Your fast kicking times…