Running. Does it help your swimming or is it an interesting diversion? A lot of people here seem to cross train with running. (Some are obviously triathletes). USS teams now have their swimmers running. But does running really help swimming?
For me, I'm not so sure. I think it helps a bit on the cardio side and may build leg strength. I do it to tighten everything up, because I like being outside and it gives my shoulders a break. But I'm not sure I wouldn't be better off with more pool time if my body could take it.
I've accepted I'll never get back to that speed, which is why I also won't run a 2 mile for time anymore ;)
I don't run fast anymore. I used to bang out 6 minute miles but the resulting wear and tear on my knees was significant. 8 minute miles work much better for me. For now at least.
Swim, then swim, and then swim some more. If we were meant to run we would have been born with runnunig shoes on our feet.
Like the dorsal and pectoral fins we were born with to help us maneuver through the water? :) ;)
Good to see you back posting; did you find Allen Stark's thread on the butterfrog controversy?
We were also born with ability to run very nicely, the brain to create running shoes, the cunning to market them, and the gullibility to buy them.
Do fish swim downhill?
I don't run fast anymore. I used to bang out 6 minute miles but the resulting wear and tear on my knees was significant. 8 minute miles work much better for me. For now at least.
I broke 11 min for the 2 mile run several times, my fastest was 10:30. Maybe it was your great Northwest air, since I was at Ft Lewis. Now sometimes it feels like it takes that long just to run 1 mile. But I'm also happy holding close to an 8 min pace now.
With proper conditioning, distance running doesn't have to poorly impact your swimming. I've seen little difference between doing a shorter/faster fartlek run or a longer run and swimming later in the day. You certainly don't want to just jump in and do a marathon out of the blue. I can see sprint/track running being as bad or worse.
Running helps me swim faster!!! Really it does. I don't know why this is true but it is. I used to think of my meet preparation as 48 hours before the meet (run 2 days before, don't run 1 day before) but now I recognize up to one week as being significant. This is not a mini-taper since my weekly volume (other than weights) is normal. Here's the current schedule for a Saturday meet:
Thank you for sharing this, as well as your whole routine. I know that I've gotten faster from running, but I also started and got serious with lifting around the same time. My times in practice now are faster than when I last did meets some time ago.
I really appreciate the schedule too, as someone else who also does multiple sports it helps to know what I could/should do, if I decide to swim in another meet.
The major problem I have with swimming and running at the same time is my feet + legs cramping up while swimming. this happened quite a bit last summer when I was running mornings and swimming evenings.
I used to be a half decent runner when I was in the military...they gave us a great incentive. If we scored 100% on our PT test, we were exempt from regular PT. I probably did much more on my own, but it allowed me to sleep in most of the time...except for the rare battalion, brigade, or above runs. I've accepted I'll never get back to that speed, which is why I also won't run a 2 mile for time anymore ;)
Good to be back in Canada. We do have dorsal muscles.
Saw some strange stuff on our way back home from Mexico in Mazatlan. A carlot bombing using hand grenades. They shot the carlot staff with AK47s. We passed the place a couple of minutes after it happened. The police and army were running around with rifles and guns at the ready. My wife said get out of here before the gas tanks explode.
I wish I had a solid answer this question, but the periods in my life when I swam a lot and ran a lot are completely non-overlapping. The best 2 mile run I ever did was low 13 minutes at age 21 when I was not swimming at all. It would be nice to know what I could have swam a 1650 in at age 21, or what I could have swam a 1650 in at age 15 if I'd also been a runner at that age.
Currently I'm just running 2 miles once a week - hardly even worth mentioning compared to what most joggers do, and probably not enough to have an influence on my swimming.
Treadmill running is approximately :24 seconds per mile slower than the said pace the readout gives you. The treadmill is actually doing some of the "foot on the ground" work for you so it takes much less effort.
Okay, I know I'm going to get blasted for that.....but it is true! :afraid:
Funny you should mention this because I recently found out that my favorite treadmill at the Y was reading out a pace that was .3 mph SLOWER than what it was actually doing. Some of the diehards apparently figured this out.
I imagine the studies have been done that show the amount of time to run a certain mph on the treadmill is slower than running at the same speed on the road. The thing that can make the treadmill challenging, however, is that when you run on the road, you aren't consistently on pace. If you are looking to run say a 7:00 minute mile on the road, you will run slower than this at some time during the mile and faster than this at some time during the mile. If you plug a certain mph on the treadmill, however, you don't get the variance. Not being able to vary your speed over the course of a mile is what I find challenging.
Of course, on my HIIT workouts, I'm always varying the speed, so I'm not sure it really matters.
Frankly, I find it much easier to run 38 to 40 second 200 meter sprints (11 mph for each 200 during an 8 x 200 workout) at the track than on the treadmill. If I'm able to consistently run 10 mph on the treadmill, I can go 11 mph at the track. Not that this is fast or anything, but it gets the HR up. I'm not a big fan of going all-out on the treadmill either. My worst wipeout on land has been when I lost my footing on the treadmill while talking to somebody as I was running fast on the treadmill. Tore up my knees worse than any bike wipeout I've ever had.
Generally, I don't think long distance running and competing at short distances in the pool go together too well. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons. I ran track (800, 1 mile, 2 mile) and swam my last two years of high school. I found that the build for me to excel in running did not work well for my swimming at all. My fly really went down the tubes.
On the other hand, after running cross country in the fall my junior year of high school, I saw some pretty big drops in my 200 free and 500 free in the high school championship meet in February. What was interesting was I was spending less time in the water because of the running. I'm not sure, however, that I could attribute the drop to running. It may have been a mental thing. In other words, since I had learned to "hurt" for 2.5 miles of running, a 200 or 500 in the pool that once seemed intimidating now seemed much easier.
me too, plus you can wake up at 5:55, out the door at 6:00, have a great 45 minute run, in the shower at 6:50 out the door again at 7:05. No driving to the pool, changing in and out of a swimsuit, using public showers etc...
That's a good point, even though I only live 3 miles from my pool. Running is by far the best use of exercise time overall.
On this topic, I am both completely torn and completely confused. For me, the biggest benefit of cross training is keeping my interest in swimming high by diversifying my workouts. When I focus solely on swimming, as I am now, it does get a bit boring at times. However, when I was doing a lot of cross training, my swimming clearly suffered.
How true. Swimming alone gets dull. I may learn to row this summer for some aerobic cross training. That would seem to have more benefits for swimming than running in any event.
I like slogging along on my occasional 5 mile zen runs. And, as Bob notes, I'm convinced that they are absolutely no good for my swimming so I keep them to a minimum. But I have no real desire to do track workouts, and for great starts and turns you can do plyos and squats. Now, sled pulls sound kinda fun.
