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.
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.
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.
