Learn To Swim

The adventure

It starts in the shallow end with a kickboard, a patient instructor and the slightly awkward feeling of learning something most people picked up as children. You practise putting your face in the water, blowing bubbles and trusting that the water will hold you up. Then one session it clicks: you push off the wall, breathe to the side and glide, and you realise you've crossed the pool without touching the bottom.

Every length after that builds confidence. Soon you're swimming steady lengths of front crawl, treading water in the deep end and trying a lake or the sea. Then the reward arrives: rolling off a boat in the tropics without a life jacket, snorkelling over a reef with turtles below you, or standing on a triathlon start line knowing you'll make it to the bike.

Why it’s epic

• A sprint triathlon swim is usually 750 metres, and an Olympic-distance swim is 1,500 metres.
• Adult beginner courses are run by most UK leisure centres, often in small groups.
• Strong swimming unlocks snorkelling with turtles, mantas and whale sharks, and learning to scuba dive.

What it is

Learning to swim properly opens up snorkelling, diving and triathlons.

How to do it

Take adult swimming lessons at a local pool.

Top tip

Practise regularly.

Need to know

• Look for adults-only beginner classes; small groups or one-to-one lessons help if you're nervous.
• Two or three short sessions a week build skills much faster than one long one.
• Open water is colder and harder than a pool, so build up with a coached session or club before your first open-water race.

Why it’s on my list

A life skill that everybody should have. Swimming. Simple enough for most, a natural thing, however I am akin to a stone!
Weirdly I remember being able to swim when I was a child – I have a vivid memory of being able to swim to the bottom of the pool, pick up a brick, and bring it back with no issues.

I then didn’t swim for many years, and somehow forgot how to, when I next needed to at school when about 15, I just splashed around flailing my arms and sinking for no apparent reason.

I have no major fears of water, I don’t avoid it – as long as I have a life jacket or can touch the floor all is good, but that is not good enough.
I have triathlons to do, I want to be able to jump off boats and swim with beautiful fishes, and bobbing around in a life jacket may well ruin the experience of swimming with whales!