Highest yearly swim totals

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Sun, 02 Feb 2020 06:25:26 GMT

When I swim 3 hours, it is usually at a place like Barton Springs in Austin. I can cruise a bit at the beginning, before it gets busy, but spend the last 30+ minutes dodging people (and having to swim on one side for the diving board). So in 3 hours probably 6 miles. But I'll only do that once or twice to peak for a swim. Most of my long swims there will be 2 to 2-1/2 hours, keeping about that same pace, 30 minutes per mile (I'm faster in a pool and for organized events, especially with a current). The, "pool," is 1/8 mile long, and I mentally measure my distance in miles rather than meters or yards. I appreciate the answer, and I am inelegantly jealous of anyone getting to swim in Barton Springs. It looks like a fun time. :D

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

aztimm — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 09:57:48 GMT

How many meters do you cover in those three hours, out of curiosity? When I swim 3 hours, it is usually at a place like Barton Springs in Austin. I can cruise a bit at the beginning, before it gets busy, but spend the last 30+ minutes dodging people (and having to swim on one side for the diving board). So in 3 hours probably 6 miles. But I'll only do that once or twice to peak for a swim. Most of my long swims there will be 2 to 2-1/2 hours, keeping about that same pace, 30 minutes per mile (I'm faster in a pool and for organized events, especially with a current). The, "pool," is 1/8 mile long, and I mentally measure my distance in miles rather than meters or yards.

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

orca1946 — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 12:03:31 GMT

Our masters team - elgin Blue Wave in Ill --- uses a mix of all the above for ages 27 --- 74 to get us in shape without breaking us for meets!

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 17:57:00 GMT

no life guards at my pool! My regular pool has one (1) lifeguard (at a time), and I'm not actually sure he knows I'm there half the time. (particularly when I'm the only one there and in the far lane). :drowning:

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 06:02:23 GMT

As to the topic.... I hit a record 640 miles last year. I swam 3 10k events, attempted a 10 miler (fell just short of finishing), and a few swims around 5k, along with 2 meets. I do have a full-time job, some occasional work travel, and some personal travel and vacations (where I may or may not swim). There were a few months when I swam some every day (that some might have been 400 yards), but generally over a month I'll take off at least 3-4 days. 90 minutes of swimming before work is really about the most I can handle. I have done some 3 hour training swims on weekends, but even those can be tough to pull off, from an overall life / timing perspective. That works out to something like 12 miles a week, if I'm calculating right, or an average of just under 3000m a day, which still seems quite a bit more reasonable than 8+ miles a day. I am pretty slow, though (3600m takes me 1.75 to 2 hours), so maybe my view is skewed. How many meters do you cover in those three hours, out of curiosity?

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

aztimm — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:08:31 GMT

no life guards at my pool! haha, there are no lifeguards at my gym pool either. but it is an indoor 2-lane 25 yard pool. I'll do 1000-2000 there after a gym workout, the occasional full workout (when my real pool isn't open), and did a few extra long swims there last year when ramping up for some o/w events. but it really takes a bit to psych myself up for something like that. As to the topic.... I hit a record 640 miles last year. I swam 3 10k events, attempted a 10 miler (fell just short of finishing), and a few swims around 5k, along with 2 meets. I do have a full-time job, some occasional work travel, and some personal travel and vacations (where I may or may not swim). There were a few months when I swam some every day (that some might have been 400 yards), but generally over a month I'll take off at least 3-4 days. 90 minutes of swimming before work is really about the most I can handle. I have done some 3 hour training swims on weekends, but even those can be tough to pull off, from an overall life / timing perspective.

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

orca1946 — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 10:39:31 GMT

These swimmers must be good friends with the life guards!!

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Calvin S — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 01:48:21 GMT

These swimmers must be good friends with the life guards!! no life guards at my pool!

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 14:14:51 GMT

What else is done in the day when soooo much pool time takes it up? This! I'm impressed anyone has the kind of time to swim an average of ~6-7 miles a day and still work, eat, sleep, etc. To each their own.

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

orca1946 — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 10:28:49 GMT

What else is done in the day when soooo much pool time takes it up?

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Patrick W. Brundage — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 06:01:00 GMT

PWB, were there kids who "coulda been a contender" but dropped out just from the harshness?Possibly, but I should have qualified that I was a distance swimmer and this was primarily for the distance folks. Do you think the coach may have been a sadist?Actually, no. He was a great coach and we all swam great. This was 1983 and the stories of what guys like Brian Goodell and Vladimir Salnikov had done in terms of high volume were legendary and circulating around many clubs. I actually really thrived for my 800/1500 doing this kind of stuff. Later on, in university, the only year I swam a decent 1650 was the year we did Tuesday/Thursday workouts that were in the ~12K to 14K range. But, by then, I was probably going more like low 60K yards (25K between the TTh long singles and another 30K from doubles on MWF and then maybe 6K to 8K on Saturday). Of course, 30+ years later, a 4K workout is a long one for me :)

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Calvin S — Sat, 18 Jan 2020 10:12:41 GMT

Jeez PWB, were there kids who "coulda been a contender" but dropped out just from the harshness? Do you think the coach may have been a sadist? (both serious questions) As to the second point, Having been coached by people who I once swam with, and having coached myself, your coaching style/philosophy is often times a product of who you were coached by. If your coach was a high volume kind of person, and either you or others around you succeeded in that system, you might be inclined to also coach that way. Also coaches who do high volume who see (some of) their swimmers succeed may also feel their system is validated. I think that last point can be dangerous though because maybe it isn't the coach's philosophy that is working so much as finding the occasional swimmer who was destined to succeed in that system. Sorry if all that seemed rambling. Musing now over coaching and coaching styles. I came from a yardage based system but as a post grad worked in a refined "lower volume"/"quality over quantity" system and came to incorporate both into my coaching style. EX: Having the collegiate girls I coached (distance group) do 20x400 LCM over training trip. But we would also do main sets like this one: forums.usms.org/entry.php (forgive the shameless advertisement of my USMS blog)

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Calvin S — Sat, 18 Jan 2020 07:02:11 GMT

Do your athletes mind you being there? If you didn't have the prior coaching connection with them, would you pursue swimming with a group like that? I trained with the college girls for about 18 months BEFORE I was a coach there (it’s sort of how the assistant coaching position fell into my lap). I coached there for five years and then retired (my wife’s word not mine). I kept away for a few years but just the past couple weeks wanted to mix up my training and the training venue so I reached back out to the head coach about dropping in from time to time. I definitely wanted to give a chance for most of the girls I had coached to graduate before I showed my face again. The seniors now I coached as freshmen. And the assistant coach who took my place was one of the girls I coached (and so I see some of “me the coach” in some of the sets she writes!). and the girls don’t seem to mind me. The younger ones who never knew me don’t pay me much of a mind at all. And the girls who I coached appreciate seeing me again (and trying to throw down against the “old” man).

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Sat, 18 Jan 2020 06:28:23 GMT

So true, Calvin. My club program was insane yardage probably to everyone's detriment in some ways, my college program was a mix of fast swims and the necessary grunt work for the distance crew (I was a 200 BR, 500/1000/1650 person depending on the year). I think that has informed how I write workouts for myself and when occasionally help out with the local middle school team. The short stuff and constant working on technique is just so important... Also- loved looking at your blog! Will definitely be stealing some workouts. I am in a weird spot where my current masters team is a pretty poor fit for me- no one else really near my base time (one guy but we are very different swimmers) and never ever do we do stroke or technique or race pace or really anything other than aerobic repeats. Swimming on my own is fine but I just really wish I could workout with a local club or college team- but that would just be weird as an old lady. Do your athletes mind you being there? If you didn't have the prior coaching connection with them, would you pursue swimming with a group like that?

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:07:44 GMT

So, ~75K LCM a week. I swam out of my mind, but it was brutal. When we tried to do it the next summer, it just wore us down. Jeez PWB, were there kids who "coulda been a contender" but dropped out just from the harshness? Do you think the coach may have been a sadist? (both serious questions)

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Patrick W. Brundage — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 12:52:29 GMT

I had a coach in the early/mid 80s in high school who subscribed to the 'Animal Lane' mantra and the summer I was 16, we would do doubles MWF, triples on TTH and another single on Saturday. We'd be going ~12K LCM on our doubles days, maybe ~16K LCM on our triples and ~8K on our single. So, ~75K LCM a week. I swam out of my mind, but it was brutal. When we tried to do it the next summer, it just wore us down. These days, I aim for 15K SCM a week when I get up to steady state training and maybe get a few weeks in the upper teens, possible to 20K. I train for fitness and to race in the pool, along with open water (up to 5K in the summer) and this is more than enough. I have a number of friends who've done the monster OW swims like Catalina, English Channel, etc. and none of them train 14K a day. Hey, if that guy loves it and it brings him joy, more power to him ... but I can't see how that volume is desirable or needed from a conditioning standpoint.:bow::bow:

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

__steve__ — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 10:15:49 GMT

For most swimmers it seems they either swim great distances but have little speed, or the opposite. Then there’s the other

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Calvin S — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 02:17:51 GMT

pwb you need one more blog entry on USMS. it's 2020 now, not 2019. :P

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 17:23:24 GMT

PS - my typical yearly totals are about the same as Phelp's weekly totals at his peak.

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 17:21:46 GMT

There was a 2015 Sorts Illustrated article about Michael Phelps. It's really long, but when it got to distance numbers, it said his 2002 to 2008 workouts were about 85,000M or more per week. That's 53 miles a week. More than a marathon a day. 2800 miles per year. www.si.com/.../michael-phelps-rehabilitation-rio-2016 (long article, but pretty good) It said that Phelps before 2012 was typically missing 2 days a week. Part of the deal he made with his coach to come back in 2016 was that he would make all the workouts, but they would only be 50- 60 km per week. After I read that article, I was coming on her with a bug up my butt about overtraining. In part, because I blew out a shoulder overtraining (or at least ramping up too quickly) when I turned 60 in 2013, but partly with this idea: If the guy who is best in the world (by far) could do it in 30 miles a week, why would ANYONE do 50 miles? I still think there are potential champs who drop out because the good programs won't deal with people who resist overtraining.

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

67King — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 12:59:32 GMT

This thread makes me want to just give it up, entirely. Probably average a little over 3,000 yards per workout, and 4-5 workouts per week on good weeks. That's like 400-500 miles. And I thought I had been doing well. ugh.

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

orca1946 — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 10:15:46 GMT

This guy made 3,000.99 miles in a year! My shoulders hurt just thinking of that! Must be an exceptional body to withstand this yardage!

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Calvin S — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 08:49:32 GMT

same 10-12/day 4 days a week and then another couple days of 6-7k... and that was low compared to what I did in club before college. Now? 12-14/wk rather than per day. Come to think of it... maybe that is why I am so much slower! When I was doing the napkin math I came up with the following (from my recollection): I trained in what we called the "upper mid-distance" group. We sort of carved out the group amongst 5-6 of us who raced the 200/500 or 200s of stroke, and felt we needed more training than the typical "middle distance" group, but didn't need the 1000/1650 race specific work (or absolute volume) of the "distance" group. M: 3k morning/7.5k afternoon (between 7-8k usually) T: 7k afternoon W: 4k morning/6k afternoon (Wednesdays were off the block) H: 7k afternoon (recovery) F: 3k morning/7.5k afternoon S: 8k morning 10.5 + 7 + 10 + 7 + 10.5 + 8 = 53k yards per week And that was really only from last week of September to the third week of November. Training Trip was first week of January which was a different animal unto itself, and then maybe the above formula might repeat for 2 more weeks after that and then we started winding down for conference. I would imagine over a six month period (mid-August to mid-February), we actually averaged out to closer to 40k a week. 53k was just peak, and then probably 65-70k for Training Trip week.

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 08:43:29 GMT

Just doing the napkin math, I think during peak training I was averaging ~ 50,000 a week in college. I probably hit close to that a few times as a post grad in my mid 20s. Now on a great week I am 22-27,000 a week. same 10-12/day 4 days a week and then another couple days of 6-7k... and that was low compared to what I did in club before college. Now? 12-14/wk rather than per day. Come to think of it... maybe that is why I am so much slower!

RE: Highest yearly swim totals

Former Member — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 08:12:48 GMT

I average about 5km per week.