'De Waldo'

There’s a number of people that everybody visiting this site should know or learn about. People like Bram and Ronald from movingstoregent.be (the guys that tought me all about bikes and racing them), Sacha Becquart, my osteopath, people like Peter, Chris, Ain-Alar, … But one of the first characters that deserves to be mentioned here, is Waldo. Or ‘De Waldo’ as he calls himself. Waldo was never officially my swim coach … and yet he is the guy who tought me how to swim freestyle and led me to my best swimming performance up to date. I was teaching myself at the time, some 10 years ago. Unable to swim more then 25 meters in a row, I started watching swim instruction videos, bought a pool buoy, and went to the pool. Sure enough I had some very bad days in pool. Luckily they weren’t as frequent as the térrible days.  Than this guy came along, long hair up to his shoulders and the leader of a pack that had swimsuits with their names on and swam like sharks. After a while, I noticed the long-haired one staying to the side of the pool and watching me underwater, every time a turned, at the end of a lap. I thought the guy fancied me, and – although flattered – I didn’t want to encourage any such behaviour, so I kept my distance. Later on, he came to me and introduced himself as Waldo.  He told me he had been watching my ‘swimming’ and he gave me a whole list of drills, exercices, tips and tricks. He tought me things about freestyle, but also about hydrating, training bricks, racing hilly bike courses, … To cut a long story short, just over two months later, I raced my first ever triathlon (IM Lanzarote) and in spite of a panic attack, some hyperventilating and a 5 minute break on a buoy to catch my breath, I hit T1 after exactly 1 hour 15 minutes. Since then, I haven’t trained with De Waldo anymore. And to give you an idea of how good his coaching abilities, tips and tricks were:  I have never improved or even equalled that very first swimming performance. De Waldo is on Facebook, so look him up. Rumour has it he might start coaching (tri-)athletes next year. But only serious ones, no soccer players…

Meet Waldo, a Belgian triathlon legend in his own right ...