I was a HS swimmer and just got into masters swimming last fall after 12 years out of the pool (I’m 30). My primary goals are to improve health, lose some weight and have some fun. However, I'm longing to go faster. Right now I struggle to hold 1:20s for more than 500yds and feel wiped out. I'd like to really improve on my mile distance, as that's about the distance of the Triathlons I like to do (oly & 1/2).
Does anyone know of any good resources that can teach me what to do to swim faster over a long distance? In other words, how much to I need to swim, what kind of sets etc. should I focus on to reach my goal of holding 1:10 for 2000 yards and have enough left in me to be ready to hop on my bike and ride for 56 miles and then run 13.1?
Right now I swim 3-4 times a week with 3-4000 yards per workout. I swim the workouts that the coach puts up, and don’t swim on my own. The workouts I think are designed toward the “overall” swimmer, not to distance freestyle. I’ve been seeing steady improvement, but can I do something else to “help” it along?
This is a lactate threshold set that I have been doing once a month since last July, I think it has helped me immensely and its very challenging:
Basically, it is swimming as many 100's as you can in a half hour, getting 10-15 seconds rest in between. You start out swimming hard and then try to hold that send off for as long as you can. I started out doing the freestyle LT set on 1:55 (meters), and have since been able to move to a send off of 1:45 which is very challenging for me, I can hold about 1:26-1:28 til about #13-14 then it creeps up to 1:33-1:34 and it HURTS! I have to focus on maintaining good technique and not falling apart. This set is also good for learning mental coping techniques, which you may need in the middle of your triathlon when you are wondering what possessed you to enter this race in the first place! I do that set once a month and I also do the same set 100 IM once a month, just as a baseline to check progress.
On that send off I can do 17 100's in a half hour, the IM's I can do partially on 1:55 then have to move back to 2:00 for the send off so I only get in 15. It's good to have conditions be the same every time so you can measure your progress. Also its the only hard thing I do that day as I am wasted afterwards.
Good advice. I also swim 500 with pull bouy, 500 with pull bouy and paddles, 500 with pull bouy paddles & fins. Then 500 with paddles and fins. And finally 500 with fins. then I'll do 100's or 50's as fast as possible until I can't swim anymore.
Recently, I've really gotten into swimming repeats until I can't swim anymore. I'm amazed at how many yards I can do!
we become what we do
I recommend you work on
technique,
endurance,
race splitting and
speed.
it would greatly help if you added a day or two each week to your training and a thousand or two to your daily yardage.
Spend a good portion of your training doing strong repeats with not much rest. Develop relaxed speed
try stuff like
15 x 100 on 1:25 then work your way to faster intervals
or
8 x 200 on 2:50 same as above
work on moving to the faster practice lanes
race splitting is important
if you work the first 200 too hard you're gonna pay for the rest of the swim.
spend a whole season concentrating on improving your 1,650 time.
shave
try a fast skin body suit.
keep training it takes months to improve
after being a sprinter my whole life in 2002 for a whole season i decided to train for the 1,650
in may I went 19:11 towards late July I got down to 17:55
good luck
