My name is Lawrie, I’m a 56 year old triathlete and cyclist, I have been competing for 7 or 8 years following a “fat to fit” journey (that’s a whole other story!)
I am a member of 7Oaks Tri club and that’s how I first met Laura. She came along to help coach a session and we were asked before the session who wanted to work in her lane, I put my hand up. Over the next hour I was blown away by her professionalism and attention to detail but most importantly by her ability to explain the complex movement patterns of swimming in such easy to understand terms. At the end of the session when I went to say thank you  I remember her saying “you should be swimming faster”. That was me hooked. I signed up for some 1-2-1 coaching with Laura and yes I did get considerably faster.
I have been a member of Triswim for 4 years (I think).
My biggest achievement in triathlon is probably racing in the GB ager group team
One triathlon moment that will stay with me forever is the finish line of Challenge Roth – my one and only full distance (so far!)
My tip for beginners – the wetsuit zip goes at the back!
Lawrie

I am 39 years old and live in East Sussex. I am passionate about horses and horse riding and have my own horse, Lucy.
I was a powerlifter competing at a national level until I had a serious back injury about 3 years ago. I was advised to swim for rehab, and while I knew how to do breaststroke I had never learnt freestyle. I thought I had better learn properly if I wasn’t going to cause more issues, so started researching swim tuition techniques and came across SwimSmooth and TriSwim.
I spoke to Laura and we hit it off. She was so understanding of my injury and my need to still feel like I was “training” with a plan etc for exercise outside the pool too. She understood that mentally going from training 10 hours a week to nothing was hard.
After 6 weeks I swam my first 400m and 2 weeks later I had my first open water swim. I was nervous but Laura was there the whole time.
So my story is a little different in that I haven’t done a triathlon but actually just had to learn to swim!
With covid closing all the pools I haven’t swum for a year now, but plan on getting back in the pool and refreshing my swim technique with Laura, and maybe actually becoming an OK swimmer.
As for a tip for beginners….well…I am one! It’s never too late to learn and while pools can be intimidating with all the good swimmers shooting up and down, just stick to the drills and be strong enough to do your own thing in the pool and it will come.
Helen

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