Quick Dip: Why Isn’t a PB My Only Sign of Progress?

A short read for the car journey

Category: Goals | Read time: Under 2 minutes

A personal best, or PB, is your fastest recorded time for an event in a particular pool length. It is worth celebrating. It is also your fastest swim so far, so you should not expect to beat it every time you race.

The finishing time cannot show every improvement. It combines your start, swimming, turns and finish. One part can improve while another still needs work.

For example, you might carry more speed out of your turns but lose time as your stroke becomes rushed near the finish. The better turns matter, even though they have not yet produced a faster overall swim.

Your time, race splits and feedback help you understand this. Splits show how long each section took. Feedback helps explain how you swam it.

Check the goal you took into the race. If your Process goal was to maintain your technique through the final 50m of a 200m race, doing that successfully is evidence that your practice is transferring into competition.

You still need to consider the whole swim. A stronger finish after a much slower opening does not, by itself, show better pacing.

You can want a PB and feel disappointed when you miss it. Recognising a specific improvement gives you something useful to build on while you continue working towards a faster time.

Try this: Record your race time and one piece of feedback linked to your goal. The Bluefins Goal Setting guide can help you connect your Performance and Process goals.

Created by Basingstoke Bluefins Coaching Team