Pavel Dagorov’s Marathon Swim Story
In my conversation today, I’m joined by fellow SwimMastery practitioner Pavel Dagorov. Pavel’s partner Margarette is a fellow SwimMastery coach colleague of mine and in his story we hear how Pavel transformed his technique to go from not being able to lift his arms for 3 days after swimming across Lake Zurich, to feeling like he could jump in and swim back.
I love how Pavel talks about the wall. Not the wall that some swimmers describe during a marathon swim, but the walls we construct around ourselves that limit what we perceive as possible.
I hope that you enjoy Pavel’s story.
In his own words:
In communist Bulgaria where I was born 1969 there was no swimming in school.
When my parents decided to flee the country and emigrate to the West, our final stop happened to be Switzerland. It was only there that I learned to swim. At the local swimming club, to stop sucking at it in school.
It wasn’t love at first sight. Or breath. At one point, I had to admit to myself that I didn’t really like competitive swimming as coached at the club. And I wasn’t any good at it. It was years later, at 25 roughly, that I found myself attracted to the open water. At some point, I took courage and started swimming longer distances, 5 to 10k, and simply loved it.
The distances eventually became so long – swimming the 26k of Lake Zurich – that I had to do something about my technique to get my swimming as effortless and efficient as possible. I first encountered Total immersion in 2015, and it was a big step towards the improvement I sought. I was fortunate to get on a development track that has led me all the way to SwimMastery, the successor of TI.
Another big step for me was losing the wetsuit and swimming in skins. Because I chafe damnably, the wetsuit was no real option for swims longer than 14k. Still, I had to surmount a big mental barrier before I ventured to swim my third Lake Zurich marathon without the suit.
With SwimMastery, I started their coach training programme. I simply wanted to impart some of the wonderful experiences I have had by swimming with well-founded techniques to others.
As a swimmer I work on taking on longer distances. Right now, more than 30k seems the limit. But the 72k of Lake Geneva are beckoning like a mirage on the horizon.
