Buying Speed

You can buy a faster bike. Deep section wheels, a tri bar, a helmet shaped like an egg, and you will go quicker on the same legs. You can buy carbon plated shoes and take minutes off a run. Even fitness is something you can buy, in a sense. Put in the hours, train hard, do the sessions, and the bike and the run give it back to you.Triathlon is full of this stuff, and to be fair most of it works. The bike is the obvious one. A set of wheels or a more aero position does part of the job for you, so the same effort gets you down the road quicker, and people spend a fortune chasing it. I'm not against any of it, buying nice kit is fun.Unfortunately, none of it works in the water. It's the only part of a triathlon where you can't 'buy speed'. You can buy a nicer wetsuit, better goggles and a watch that counts your lengths, and none of it will make a bad stroke a good one. Water is far thicker than air, so how you move through it matters much more than how hard you can push, and there is…