People who are already over 100 and 200 miles for the year?!

Yes, the CA "nutcases" swim the Catalina Channel, the English Channel, the Maui Channel, etc. They love the challenge!

I just imagined that you guys didn't invite me. :cry: Look on the bright side - at least you don't have the imaginary hangover I do! :eek:

I have respect for the high mileage swimmers. There is nothing wrong with putting your time/energy into something that is giving you a positive outcome. Keep on swimming! And OP, I looked at results from 2012 and the top two from both 35-39 and 40-44 blogged their workouts and posted their training plans (here or elsewhere). I searched another random "high mileage" name on Google and it brought me to results from open water swims where his times looked very credible for his age group. So...the information is out there.

I will make the general point explicitly: people who decide to engage in an activity daily (especially a skill-building activity, though that is not under discussion here) and use their time efficiently in such pursuit are not nuts, psychos, skimping on their family's needs, have issues, and so forth, as this and another recent thread implied. I regret that Go the Distance should inspire such a conversation. As the poster who first used the term "nutcase" here, as in "our nutcases vs. your nutcases", I sincerely meant this in a jocular tone. A teammate here in Western PA, for what it's worth, did coin a phrase to describe my manner: "inappropriate jocularity." Oh, the sting of recognition! The point being that I am no stranger to my words being construed (not necessarily miscontrued, which implies the recipient, not the sender, is at fault!) in a way that is different from my intent. Lord knows I have suffered sufficient pyschiatric woes of multiple varieties that I'd never want to use "nut" in a stigmatizing fashion! Moreover, I know for certain that John K's yards are as sound as the pound. All this said, whenever you get to the extremes of any Bell-Shaped Distribution of human performance, you are--by definition--entering the realm of the abnormal. This doesn't mean there's anything wrong, but it doesn't mean that everything is 100 percent guaranteed to be wonderful, inspirational, and the like. The world's tallest person. The world's smartest person. The world's fastest backwards runner. The world's richest person. I would argue that extreme accomplishment and/or extreme physiological attributes increase the odds (though doesn't guarantee it) of some compensatory abnormality in other aspects of that person's life. My first comment was in response that some OW swimmers, when the ocean proves inhospitable, will pop off a 20-mile swim in the pool. I still think this is fishy, so to speak--not that it's impossible to do, for surely it is. But that a person who would do this regularly is, by necessity, allocating less of his or her resources to other life demands, upping the odds (though again not guaranteeing it) of a somewhat unbalanced life. I think if you were to ask John K., he would freely concede a tincture of obsessiveness in his nature, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a thing.

Saturday's workout will be 5 x thru (5 x 200 free + 400 IM)--not including warm-up and cool-down. Wow! More power to ya!! I just couldn't see myself doing that, especially in a solo setting. I'm sure I could complete it, but it would hurt on my intervals. And I honestly doubt my age group coach would ever assign us anything like that either.

... Respectfully, I'm training to do the swim around Key West, I'm also in the position (business owner) that I can spend 3-4 hours in the pool (however twice a day, no days off ), and on Saturdays only 3 hours straight. Last year I was the straggler to Tim Martin at a lowly 1700 miles to his 2000 plus. If I was a cheater I would have beat him, but who would I be kidding?... at 59 I've no need to cheat, and I guarantee you at the end of the year I won't be in first place! John, good luck with your training for Key West. With this much yardage built up you should have a great swim.

John, good luck with your training for Key West. With this much yardage built up you should have a great swim. Thank you Karlene, I work really hard , and what Jim Thornton stated about obsessiveness, he is 100 percent correct! I won't lie, I'm not as fast as Jim (I can only do a 21 minute 1650 to his 18 minute), but I'm able to keep a solid pace long term. Swimming the 100 yd freestyle is not as fast as it once was, but hey... It is what is! My goal is to stay somewhat fit, and still fit into my 34 jeans! Ok it's vanity! Hell I don't look a day over 58 and I'm all of 59!

My shoulders are barely happy at my current pace of

I was just checking my own mileage for the month and the time I've spent in the water to compare with last year and found some interesting results along the lines of this discussion... last May was my highest mileage month to date: 62.6 miles. That's about 10 x 10K. I swam 27 sessions and averaged 2.3 miles and 1 hour, 15 minutes per session. Even with my super slow times, this is not a tremendous time investment to be sure; I don't know if it counts as obsessive (my wife would beg to differ probably). Nonetheless, most of my non-swimming acquaintances (and some of the swimmers too) call me nuts. So, I have an hour and a quarter less television time 27 times a month--I missed 68 episodes of "The Office"! I think I'll live... and hopefully a longer, higher quality life as a result. Maybe if I could stop watching documentaries and classic movies on Netflix, I could swim the Channel!

I have childhood issues. Swimming helps. :bighug: I'll give you a real one this weekend; especially after you realize Nike won't be showing up to Auburn. :sad: