Today’s post is brought to you from my friend Heather Gardner. We used to cheer together wayyyy back in the day for the Hamilton Ti-Cats and stayed friends through the Queen St Lululemon Run Club! She’s training for triathlons this year so when Speedo approached me I knew she would be the perfect fit for this review! Check out her post and give her some love over at her blog runsoulcycle.com. You can also follow her on Twitter at @RunSoulCycle.

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As someone new to the triathlon scene I’ve been interested in finding a training program that would not only set me up for success for my first race, but help me with stroke technique all while having a lot of fun – hey, if it’s not fun why do it? So I was glad to be introduced to the Speedo Pace Club app and website, it’s informative, easy to use, and great for setting and accomplishing goals.

The Speedo Pace Club is an online destination and mobile app, which provides training programs to help all levels of swimmers improve their fitness and stroke technique. Whether you have a fitness goal to increase speed, increase endurance, lose weight, or train for a triathlon the Speedo Pace Club has multiple training programs for you. They also have training programs for people looking for rehab exercises as well as water aerobics modules – so there is no excuse, this app is for everyone!

Within the multitude of training programs, you’ll find weekly workout programs which will take you through warm-up, your main activity sets, and warm-down. My favourite part of the app is that most of the sets include short 60 second instructional videos from the world’s top swimmers and coaches on the specific drills and strokes from that week’s workout. The videos are very informative, as it seems that swimming has a language all its own – do you know what “catch-up freestyle” is? Well, watch the Intermediate/Advanced Triathlon Training video for Week 2: Workout 1 and you’ll be swimming lengths around the others during open swim.

Motivation is also an important component for me when hitting the pool, sometimes it’s very easy to opt for sitting in the hot tub instead! Well the Speedo Pace Club Goal Mapper will keep you motivated and kicking. The Goal Mapper allows you to set swimming routes around the virtual world – I set mine from Toronto to Broadway (42^nd street to be exact!). After each swim you input your distance, it calculates your progression, and shows you how far you really are swimming. You can challenge friends, share routes, and even try routes already established by other Speedo Pace Club swimmers, including 6-time American Olympic champion and world record holder Ryan Lochte (he’s also headed to London to swim for the States this summer).

Other features of the app and website include being able to find swimming pools in your area, print off training programs, track your swim times and distances  and share them with friends through the swimmer’s social network, or Swim Team. The Swim Team network allows you to build your team by inviting your friends, high five friend’s achievements, and leave words of support – or trash talk

Check out the online destination or find the app free at iTunes. So, find a training program that works for you and dive right in!