You Don't Pull the Lake: What a Trail Runner Learned About the Catch
Runner to Swimmer Stories, Part 3
Tom is 52, a trail runner, and the proud owner of four head torches. He runs up hills for fun. He once ran a 30 km mountain trail in the rain and described it afterwards as "lovely". If something is hard, Tom's answer has always been the same: put your head down and work.
So when his trail-running friends signed him up for a small local swimrun on the lake (two short swims, three trail runs, cake at the finish), Tom bought hand paddles, went to the pool, and started working.
He swam like a windmill in a storm. Arms whirling, water flying, hands ripping backwards through the pool as if he were trying to drag the far wall towards him. A lifeguard later described the splash zone as "about two lanes wide".
After four lengths, his shoulders were on fire. After six, he was holding the side of the pool, telling anyone who'd listen that swimming was "basically climbing, but wet".
You don't pull the road
Someone at the pool asked Tom a simple question. "When you run uphill, do you pull the trail backwards with your feet?"
He looked back as if he'd been asked whether he puts petrol in his trail shoes.
Think about what your foot does on a run. It lands, it plants, and for that brief moment it doesn't move. It doesn't scrape backwards over the ground. Your foot stays where it landed, and your body moves forward over it. If your foot slides, you'd call that slipping, and every trail runner knows the feeling on wet rock: the ground gives way, and the push-off disappears.
That's exactly what Tom was doing in the water. His hands weren't anchoring. They were slipping.
The catch is an anchor, not a pull
This is one of the ideas in the book From Runner to Efficient Swimmer: Master the Crawl that changes runners the fastest. Your hand enters the water through the mail slot, in line with your shoulder, and reaches forward. Then it sets an anchor: forearm tipping down, elbow higher than the hand, holding the water like a planted foot holds the trail.
And then you don't pull. Your hip rotates, and your body moves forward past the anchored hand. Hip first, then the arm follows. You're not dragging the lake towards you. You're travelling past your hand.
Tom tried it. Slowly, grumpily, and only because someone had promised there would be cake at the swimrun. The splash zone shrank to roughly one lane. Then to his own. Then, for a few beautiful strokes, there was hardly any splash at all.
Practise it in the hallway first
Tom was a little embarrassed by this part, but it worked. Before each pool session, he spent five minutes in his hallway rehearsing the arm positions on dry land, in front of the mirror, one movement at a time. His wife watched once and asked whether he was "directing traffic".
It doesn't matter how it looks. Your nervous system learns a movement more easily when it doesn't have to deal with water, breathing and balance at the same time.
Three catch cues for runners
- Plant, don't pull. Feel your hand settle in the water like a foot on the ground. Then move past it.
- Hip first. Start the movement from the hip rotation, not from the shoulder. The arm follows.
- One cue per attempt. Swim four to eight metres with one thing in your head. Not three. One.
Cake at the finish
Tom finished his little swimrun near the back of the field, smiling and completely unhurried. He didn't win anything. He did, however, eat three pieces of cake, which he considers a personal best.
What Tom took away from the lake
- Swimming harder with your arms is like running uphill on wet rock. You slip.
- The catch is an anchor. Plant your hand, then move your body past it.
- Rotation from the hip drives you forward, not muscle from the shoulder.
- Rehearse new movements on dry land before you take them into the water.
The Runner to Swimmer Stories
Three runners, three problems, three fixes: balance for Marco, breathing for Petra and the catch for Tom. Put them together, and you have the start of the path from runner to efficient swimmer.
Marco, Petra and Tom had the same goal and three completely different problems. That's the trouble with general swimming tips: they're written for nobody in particular. A tall, lean runner sinks differently from a compact, muscular one. One runner holds their breath, another fights with the arms, a third does both and blames the goggles. What you need is not more tips but a process that suits you, your body and your starting point. That's why the book From Runner to Efficient Swimmer: Master the Crawl begins with a baseline test, so you know where you really stand, and uses readiness gates instead of a calendar, so you move on when you're ready, not when a plan says so. The three runners in the book, Jonas, Sarah and Dave, have different body types and different paths, and you'll recognise yourself in at least one of them. Behind it all is a proven sequence: rehearse on dry land, discover the feeling in the water, then practise one cue at a time until the new movement drops below conscious thought. That's how a runner's subconscious is reprogrammed for the water. Not in one article. One gate at a time, at your pace.
Take it easy, God bless you.