I've just met a top swimmer in my country who is now in his 40s, and he is in the top 5 of the national long distance swimming championships, not in the age group, but overall.
He mentioned that he trains about 80 km a week. I wonder how he can keep such amount of training in his working age, and I have found out that he is the CEO of a telecommunication company he created, i.e. he's an entrepreneur. He trains at a recreation club, i.e. a place exclusively for the upper social class.
However, even for me working in a standard 9 - 18 office job Monday to Friday, I cannot do more than 20 km a week, and recently due to the pool opening time (the pool I use opens 7:30 and closes 19:00 in winter), I can only do about 13 km a week, which is totally not enough for my target race (my target is to do 15 km race next year). If I need to do the channel afterwards I must convert my full time job to part time in the winter preceding my attempt in order to have enough training, i.e. live off my saving.
The life of an entrepreneur, with no doubt, is much busier than employed as a 9-18 office worker, how is he still possible to have 80 km training a week? This question is very offending that I dare not ask him directly.
I think part of it is just how bad you want to train, how much you like it, what you are trying to accomplish, etc. Where there is a will, there is a way. When I first moved to Little Rock after college, I had a full time job (not a 9-5, but a 7-3 M-F) but I loved swimming so much and was actually getting faster than I had been in college so I kept pushing it. I wasn't getting 80k in a week (that IS kind of crazy), but I found a way to balance the job and making 9 practices a week and doing about 40-50k a week (at peak).
I knew what I needed to do to get where I wanted to be, so I found a way to make it work.
I realize my situation was a little different given I am half the OP's example's age.
It is possible - I did it for 7 weeks when I was 42.
The key is what Calvin said - you are totally motivated to do it and make it happen.
In my case, I was a VP of a small start-up and working every day about 60 hrs/week.
Swim schedule was 5:30 am - 7 am (about 5K) and then 8:30 - 10 pm (another 5-6K). So, not quite 80K, but close. Did it for 7-8 weeks in prep for the race I was focused on and then went back to the usual.
What is really crazy is what happens in the US during the February fitness challenge (see how many yards you can swim in 28 days). The record is in the 900,000 yard range. Last year's high was close to 700,000.
I bet he would love to explain his training to you - I doubt he would be offended. He is doing something pretty unusual and would enjoy the recognition.
I would be wondering more about how he keeps his body in top shape to handle that kind of mileage. I took a 30 month break when my wife and I had two kids. I actually left the hospital the day after my daughter was born for one "Last Hurrah." After that I didn't do much for that entire stretch. But right near the end of my last grind before my daughter was born, I found I was actually spending more time RECOVERING than I was training. I wasn't training quite at the levels I referenced in my first post, but I mean I was spending hours stretching and icing just to be ready for the next day. I missed swimming during my hiatus, but I didn't miss all that. And now that I am at it again, I find the time spent recovering is again creeping up to ridiculous levels.
I will say part of that is my ice maker only holds so much ice, so I have to ice body parts in shifts. But anyways, I wonder where the OP's friend finds the time to recover!
80km a week? WOW... This sounds crazy to me. I don't belive it tbh. If he is doing one day off, he needs 12 times a week sessions with almost 7km per session.
It is possible - I did it for 7 weeks when I was 42.
The key is what Calvin said - you are totally motivated to do it and make it happen.
In my case, I was a VP of a small start-up and working every day about 60 hrs/week.
Swim schedule was 5:30 am - 7 am (about 5K) and then 8:30 - 10 pm (another 5-6K). So, not quite 80K, but close. Did it for 7-8 weeks in prep for the race I was focused on and then went back to the usual.
What is really crazy is what happens in the US during the February fitness challenge (see how many yards you can swim in 28 days). The record is in the 900,000 yard range. Last year's high was close to 700,000.
I bet he would love to explain his training to you - I doubt he would be offended. He is doing something pretty unusual and would enjoy the recognition.
The pools that I use, as part of my employee benefit which open unheated in winter, open 6:30 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. in summer the longest, and 7:30 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. between December and February. So I am limited to 45 minutes before work in these two months. I may consider changing my working hours from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. when I renew my contract the coming autumn. (When I signed up for this job, I just wanted to have swim training along with some other commitments in the evening, but I have nearly gave up all my evening commitments now as I set my goal to complete a marathon swimming race)
My target race is in January or February, i.e. the season which the pools I use open the shortest hours.
About the fitness challenge, 900000 yards in 28 days?! That's nearly a channel every day! Crazy!
I tend to get in most of my yardage/meterage over the weekend due to pool limitations and job schedule during the week. 80k per week for a typical masters swimmer is absurd, in my opinion.
If you want to get in your 20k per week you could consider a very long swim on Saturday--something like 10k. Swim 2,500 four more days per week and there's your 20k.
When someone asked Sarah about her training, she responded with this:
So pretty much, to get to 80k a week, you have no life beyond work, sleep and swim. ;)
Oh my god, this schedule is reasonable and it is really possible (if my full time job is 10 am - 7 pm I can put the sea swim before).
However, I still have life, I am competing orienteering on elite level, I still need to practice a foreign language as I want to go to Europe, and lunch break is extremely important for me because I don't have dinner as my training schedule doesn't allow it. This is absolutely not for me.
Anyway, I have worked out a schedule for doing about 30 km a week later this year.
Sarah Thomas did 68 miles a week in the lead-up to her 100+ mile swim. And she had a full-time job. Somewhere in the Interwebs is a picture of her training log prior to that amazing swim in Lake Champlain and the workouts were intense. I'm trying to find it, but no luck yet.
Sarah Thomas did 68 miles a week in the lead-up to her 100+ mile swim. And she had a full-time job. Somewhere in the Interwebs is a picture of her training log prior to that amazing swim in Lake Champlain and the workouts were intense. I'm trying to find it, but no luck yet.
OK, this isn't it, but here's a bit on her training from the MSF documentation:
In March, I swam great- building up to 3 weeks at 50k the last two weeks of March and the first week of April. Then, I had some travel at the end of April and got sick again after that travel, so I fell way off the last two weeks of April. In May, with the swim looming only 3 months out, I put down the hammer. I had four weeks at 60k/week in May, then kicked off “real” training with the Mercer Island Marathon Swim double the first week of June. In June and July, I swam 85k/week or more, with a few weeks well over 100k. I was sore, tired, but really focused. I lost that 15 pounds and Ryan said I was stronger than he could ever remember me being. I finished my training with a 20 mile swim in Grand Lake in Oklahoma after my sister’s wedding and then went into a really hard taper. I’ve always done better on short tapers, so there was exactly 15 days between the 20 mile training swim and stepping into the water at Lake Champlain.
When someone asked Sarah about her training, she responded with this:
Full time job. Schedule looked like this, roughly (sometimes a little longer on Sat and Sunday if needed):
-Monday- Work 7-4; Swim 4:30 pm-7:00 pm (lake)
-Tuesday- Work 7-5:00; Swim 6:00 pm-8:15 pm (pool)
-Wednesday- Work 7-4; Swim 4:30 pm-7:00 pm (lake)
-Thursday- Swim 6 am-7:30 am (pool); Work 8:15-5:30; Swim 6:15-8:15 (pool)
-Friday- Work 8 am-whenever I needed to catch up; no swimming
-Saturday- Swim 7:30 am-10:00 am (lake); Swim 2:00 pm-6:00 pm (lake)
-Sunday- Swim 9 am-3 pm (lake)
That could get me to about 85k-90k/week. I also quit taking lunch breaks to make sure I was getting everything done.
So pretty much, to get to 80k a week, you have no life beyond work, sleep and swim. ;)
