British triathlete Emma Pallant-Browne is on her way to becoming the most winning female in history at the half ironman distance. Having won 22 Ironman 70.3 races with another 41 podiums, the middle distance specialist only needs one more victory to take the title. “A stats guy wrote and showed I was level on 70.3 wins with Daniela Ryf so this year Jaryd [her husband] was like you have to win another. I didn’t even know about that record but it’s cool.”
The title would just be “a little bonus on top,” she says, but ultimately performance is what drives Pallant-Brown. The 35 year-old is at the peak of her career and with a lifetime of sporting experience under her belt, her decisions come down to what is going to make her the best she can be.
“It’s getting closer and closer in the races and it has to, at some point, be all about performance. What product is going to get you faster, what product is going to be the best for races, so you can keep getting those results.”
A new tool in her belt for the 2025 season is THEMAGIC5.
From the Bottom to the Front Pack
For Pallant-Browne, the biggest area for gains is swimming. The former track runner has had to invest a lot of time into getting her swim up to a world-class competitive level, something that happened much more easily in cycling when she changed sports. At the start, Pallant-Browne was “literally the last person coming out of the water.”
“[That experience] taught me a lot about sport and a lot about being brave and focusing on something.”
Being last of the water is a thing of the past for Pallant-Browne but, she reiterates, swimming is still her weakness and something she specifically focuses on every offseason. Focus doesn’t mean racking up the big miles (which is something she tried in the past); focus means consistency.
“I have chosen to base myself as much as possible at home in South Africa because I have people to swim with and I have guys that are faster than me and that will do my swim set–that’s been super key. I think when I’ve travelled and been away from home for a long time and swimming on my own, I definitely see a decline in my swimming.”
Her choice to stay home paid off big time last year with some of her best swim performances of her career.
“There’s been times where it has clicked and it’s been super encouraging,” she says, recalling Ibiza T100 where she came out with the front pack. “I certainly feel more confident.”
CUES
Pallant-Browne also credits her front-pack confidence to her technique work. In fact, her fastest swims in the 2024 season were all non-wetsuit, an unheard of statistic for a late-to-swimming triathlete.
Using different cues for each part of her stroke, from the catch to the kick, Pallant-Browne says she's “always thinking about technique.”
“I always go to the pool with one or two cues…There’s always ways to improve and you might have to try out twenty new cues until you find one that actually helps your swim but it’s always worth it.”
Finding cues is something Pallant-Browne really dove into during the pandemic.
“I had four months of zero swimming and I was just dry land training. I got obsessed with my swim training and each day I was looking at YouTube videos. I would search something about technique and then use that cue over and over.”
Pallant-Browne made notes, compared her swim videos to ones on the internet and, when the pools finally reopened, she was swimming five seconds faster per hundred than ever before.
She admits she tried out hundreds of cues before finding ones that worked for her.
“It was finding the way someone said it that actually resonated with what I was doing…I tested so many cues. I would do 100 m reps and just compare my time and know my effort. I’d see the ones that actually made a difference and if it was three seconds or more faster than my normal stroke then that was a winning cue for me.”
Quality Over Quantity
Quality over quantity is not the natural default for an endurance athlete. But Pallant-Browne says when it comes to swimming, “fighting through it” doesn’t work in the long run.
“In the past, I swam loads, big miles. I had the pool fitness and that didn’t really help. Some days I’d swim 10 km. I’d do double swim days and just became tired and sloppy in the water and my stroke really suffered.”
Even with a managed swim load, if she feels her technique falling apart she will reach for buoyancy shorts or a pull buoy to help her. Beyond that, she will take a few days off from the water, freshen up, and hit the gym to reinforce good patterning.
“It can be frustrating and hard to step back when you’re in race season but it’s always something that I’ve done and come back feeling better–and then you enjoy it more because you see those times and you’re improving.”
Enjoyment Matters
Just like finding a successful technical cue, finding THEMAGIC5 goggles was an instant win for Pallant-Browne.
“When you put them on, it’s really hard to go back.”
“The more I can make it easier to go to the pool and actually enjoy being in the water–and so much of that is about vision and comfort. When your goggles leak it's just unpleasant, it's the worst.”
More than comfort and fit, Pallant-Browne noticed performance gains.
“Even when I was first wearing the goggles and just trying them out, I think my stroke actually improved because I had more awareness in the water.”
“When you don’t see as well, your balance is very much like outside of the water. So, outside of the water, if someone was to put their hands a little bit over your face or you had really misted sunglasses, your proprioception or balance to do with sight is not the same. I found I was more stable in the water.”
Her new found stability translated into better racing performance in the open water.
“In racing, vision is obviously so important. The goggles actually helped me bilaterally breathe because the less vision you have, the more I tend to have a comfort side to breathe on, so being able see evened out my stroke.”
But Pallant-Browne wanted to be sure so she tested them just as she would any other change to her swimming. Instead of doing 100 m reps, she and her husband swapped their THEMAGIC5 goggles to see if they were actually a perfect, custom fit.
“It was so funny because then I swam with his and he swam with mine and it totally didn’t work!”
