How I finally broke the minute barrier, and what I learned along the way
On my 59th birthday, I swam 100m freestyle in 59.87 seconds at Swim England’s National Masters Championships in Sheffield.
It was the first time in my life that I’d broken the minute barrier – a significant milestone for many competitive swimmers but a goal that eluded me for many years. I remember writing it in my diary about 30 years ago, along with swimming 400m in less than 5 minutes and 1500m in under 20 minutes.
At the time, the sub-60 goal seemed the most achievable. I was less than 2 seconds out for the 100m, but 10 seconds away for the 400 and 45 seconds out for the 1500 – yet I achieved those longer benchmarks within a couple of years.
Downward drift
The closest I came to 60s was in 2011, when I swam 1:00.09. After that, I kept getting slower. I lost sight of the goal as I was doing longer swims in open water. I started to think I was too old to sprint and had missed my chance.
Then, after the pandemic, I swam 1:03.82 – my slowest recorded time for the 100m by some way. It was a wake-up call and motivated me to reset the target. Could I swim sub 60 before I was 60? I called it my Sub 60 by 60 project.
Multi-pronged approach
Clearly, my training at the time wasn’t sufficiently focused. Continuing as I was and hoping for a breakthrough wouldn’t work. And while day-dreaming can be a useful tool, I knew I couldn’t just imagine myself swimming faster in order to get quicker times. I needed to deal with all the angles: swimming technique, strength, fitness, pacing and skills. I took each in turn.
Technique
I know what good swimming technique looks like – but that is not the same as being able to do it. It’s hard to sense precisely what you are doing in the water and difficult to self-correct. I therefore booked a couple of video analysis sessions with Ray Gibbs at Swim Canary Wharf, so I could see what I was doing. Ray identified room for improvement in my right arm catch and gave me a series of drills and exercises to do.
Strength
Sprint events require power. Strength fades with age. I’ve known I ought to hit the gym for years but I’m not a fan of lifting weights. Setting an explicit target gave me the motivation to research strength training for swimmers and create some basic workouts.
Fitness
While the 100m FC is primarily a sprint event, you do need some aerobic fitness and muscular endurance to sustain yourself through the second half. As I already did a lot of long-distance swimming, this wasn’t a big focus area, but I didn’t want to let it slip. I made sure to include one endurance session per week in my training.
Pacing
Pacing is critical for an optimum 100m time. You need a fast first 50, but not so fast that you collapse. This isn’t just about fitness, but about control, and feeling the right effort level. I worked on this in training and also experimented with different strategies in races.
Skills
Swimming has changed in many ways since I learned in the 1970s. One of the biggest changes has been the development of the underwater phase after the start and turns. Swimmers adopt a streamlined profile and use dolphin kicks to power through the water. I’ve been working on bringing these skills into my own swimming, as well as working on my racing dives.
Final preparations
For a peak performance swim, you need to arrive at the event fresh but not detrained. This is the art of tapering: reducing your training load so that you are not tired but doing enough to stay sharp. Everyone is different but I left one week for this.
Then, in an ideal world, I’d have travelled to Sheffield 24 hours before my race, but I had to make the 4-hour drive on the day. I knew this would leave me stressed, stiff and lethargic, so I allowed time for a walk, some fresh air, and a warm up. Sheffield can be a tricky pool for turns, so I made sure to practise those.
In the final moments before the swim, I ran through my plan: relax at the start, hit the turns hard, accelerate on the third length and focus on keeping my stroke long and strong to the end.
Staying detached
My preparation for this swim was the best it’s ever been. I climbed onto the starting block knowing that I had done everything I could. But there was no guarantee of a fast time. I’d been in that position before and left disappointed. I told myself it didn’t matter. If I didn’t hit the time today, there would be other opportunities. And besides, it was the journey that mattered, not the result. I tried to put all thoughts of the finishing time out of my mind and focus entirely on swimming as fast as I could.
But when I hit the wall and looked up at the scoreboard, I was very happy.
I’m in Lane 5, white cap, turquoise trunks
What about your goals?
If you’ve got a swimming goal you’re working towards — whether it’s breaking a time barrier or feeling more confident in open water — I’d love to help. Feel free to get in touch.
