How can I figure out how many miles I am doing? How do I convert when the coach says we're swimming a 3200? I know this should be easy but can't remember since it's been a while.
Former Member
Love my sprints too ... don't dis sprinters just b/c you are jealous ;)
I secretly worship distance swimmers and there ability to hang on, I don't mind swimming distance but I suck at it.
I admit it; I'm jealous!!! I can't sprint my way out of a paper bag or if my life depended on it! I don't have that kind of power, but I'm in for the long haul.....!!
Kari, I have a teammate that I can beat in any distance up to a 200 but anything over that and she kicks my butt up one side of the pool and down the other ... she is amazing. I totally admire that.
It's mental at that point then ... seriously, if you do 3,200 in practice you can swim a mile, you just have to learn how to pace, which is easier said than done ... just swim it slow, slower than you think you'd need to ...
Keather - yes, it's variety that makes the world go around. I remember our coach telling me once that "Mark Spitz was terrible at backstroke; you can't be good at everything" - which was really good advice because it was during a time when I was really obsessing about trying to train for the 400 IM (LOL!)!
nkace - how long have you been swimming. We do not allow name calling on this board, so stop calling yourself a wimp! ;)
Usually ... when I get really tired or lazy I'll just breathe to the right, but for the most part I breathe bilaterally ... you'll find swimmers at every level that breathe to one side (Thorpe for ex) and ones that alt.
Ahhh...breathing to both sides....I've heard both "sides" of the story from coaches - one person said, "you have to breath to both sides!" .... another said, "don't worry about it as long as you make sure your body is rotating enough."
I, for one, only breath to my left. Not a good idea, because even if you do favor one side, it's good to be able to comfortably breath to both sides, because you will have a rounder, more even stroke. This morning I was trying to concentrate on breathing to my right for one length, then breathing to my left for one length. My stroke really breaks down when I try to breath to my right, but I believe it's necessary to be able to do so.
What about you?
Originally posted by nkace
How can I figure out how many miles I am doing? How do I convert when the coach says we're swimming a 3200? I know this should be easy but can't remember since it's been a while.
is that meters or yards?
One mile has 5280 feet, divide that by 3 and get yards, 1760 if you want to be exact.
Many people 'affetionatlely' call the 1500 meter distance a mile, and it most closely resembles n actual distance of 1650 yards.
Then to complicate things more, you might want to get into a conversion between feet and meters... Then you can try and account for a difference between a nautical mile and a land mile...
How exact do you want to be??? ;)
