new to swimming regularly - 50 yard freestyle

RE: new to swimming regularly - 50 yard freestyle

MSK — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 09:07:35 GMT

I am 50 and have belonged to a Master's club for 8 months. I was already in pretty good shape from cycling and taekwondo, but have no prior swim team experience. I did swim to cross train during hot summer weather when cycling is less appealing. I improved my 50 yard time from 1:15 or so when I started to a personal best of 45 seconds (or 50 seconds reliably) in about six months. I think a combination of better form and conditioning. The improvements are not coming so quickly now. I improved my 400 yard time of 14:45 from barely being able to do 400 free without switching to *** or back to 8:38. I can now swim a mile in under 40 minutes, which was what I was working toward. I have started competing in multi sport and open water this year so longer distances are what I am mostly training for. However, I definitely see that working on short distance intervals does have tremendous fitness value that has helped my longer distances.

RE: new to swimming regularly - 50 yard freestyle

orca1946 — Sat, 20 Aug 2016 12:36:05 GMT

Keep going. I recently taught a iran/Iraq war vet how to swim. To start with, he could swim as far as he could hold his breath. After working with him every week to learn how to breathe on the side and pull with a flat hand to push the water back & him forward , he progressed to 50 -75- 100 -150 and after 6 months--- he swam 500 yards nonstop. he is 6ft. 2 and 260 lbs. with war injuries to his shoulder and head. I felt really good helping him reach his goals and we are good friends .

RE: new to swimming regularly - 50 yard freestyle

Sumorunner — Sat, 20 Aug 2016 08:13:05 GMT

I'm 68, been swimming laps on and off for over 30 years as cross-training because I've been primarily a runner. I never timed myself swimming until January after my kids bought me a swim watch for Xmas. Being an endurance type, I never cared what my short distance times were. Mostly I record times for 1000 yards or more at 2.5 to 3 minutes per 100yd. Can I go faster? Yes, I can do just under 1 minute for 50yd or 26-27 sec. for 25yd, but I would much rather do a faster mile. In the swimming world 1650yd (close to 1500 meters) is a benchmark. I did time a couple of those around 42 minutes which is rather slow even for my age.

RE: new to swimming regularly - 50 yard freestyle

Mark Usher — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 11:13:23 GMT

Hi Cathy, First, congratulations on making the commitment to improving your health and lifestyle! I'm 63. I swam on a club team as a kid until I was 15, then quit to pursue other interests (football, wrestling, girls, etc.). I stayed active over the years, but really didn't do any serious swimming again until age 50 when I started doing triathlons. Due to some nagging running injuries I decided to go back to just swimming full-time early last year. When I was competing in triathlons I was generally swimming at a pace around 1:50/100 yards for open water races from 400 yards up to 1500 meters on a minimal amount of swim training. Not fast for serious swimmers, but competitive for my age group in triathlon, and leaving me with gas in the tank for the bike and run. The masters team I joined last year had a coach who was an excellent stroke technician. She worked a lot with me on my technique and got my 100 yard times down into the mid 1:20's within about eight months. I swim 5-6 days per week and have logged 500,000 yards in the past year. I've also spent a lot of time over the past year working on my other strokes. I've made a lot of progress with my butterfly and backstroke, but breaststroke continues to frustrate me. I enjoy competing in Masters meets, both to challenge myself and for the social aspect. I know I don't have the time, talent, or ability to ever be super fast, but I still love that I'm able to go to the pool in the mornings and work hard to get better.