Suggestions on Tapering for LD Ocean Swim

Hi Solar, I wanted to give you the name of the product to help prevent stings from Jellyfish and Sea Lice. It is by Safe Sea and it is called Sunblock with Jellyfish Sting Protective lotion. It helps thrwart off jellyfish and sea lice stings. I have no swim coach, but did when I was training for the 68 Olympics and then I had masters coaches. I swam under Don Easterling and George Haines. I was blessed to have these two men who understood the mechanics of swimming. I am very grateful that I learned to conserve energy in my stroke development. Something I do to this day. But the open ocean is a dangerous place and I understand that I will be out of my "element." Also, because of where I live on this island, I am actually the swim coach/swim teacher here; no one else does it. Right now there is one large escort boat, a re-vamped dive boat with cover that is not tall like a fishing boat. There will be two rescue divers/EMTs onboard, a videographer, a chaplain, and a fellow with a shotgun (just in case of sharks). But now that a press release is about to come out about this, two more boats have offered to go along and photograph portions of the swim. Many of my friends will be in other boats. Also, I may be wearing the Shark Shield device for peace of mind with extra battery packs. And I will have a loop on my swim suit in case I have to be pulled out of the water. I am with you that safety is first and foremost and I want to thank you for your concern about my safety. If you can think of anything that I have not considered, by all means throw it in and let me know!!! Donna

Great then !!! Please keep us posted. I can't wait to post some clips on dropshots (my You-Tube). Do you think you're going to have digital images? As for the original question, in your case I would definitely favor work capacity over freshness, given that performance isn't really your number1 priority. Say your potential best time at the moment (race fit, and rested) over 200m = 1.47m/s 400m = 1.35m/s 800m = 1.28m/s 3.2k = 1.18m/s and so on... This is what I call a speed/duration curve. Most pool events belong to VO2Max energy system or even faster. In preparation for such an event, you need a sharp (steep) speed/duration curve. The speed for shorter events (left hand side of the curve) needs to be very high, with the side effect of lowering the performance level of longer events (right hand side of the curve). After all, what's the point of being able to book the 3.2k at 1.21, if you're preparing for a 400m... But a marathon belong to the other extreme of the speed/duration curve. You need what we call a flat speed/duration curve. That means that as a marathon swimmer, you don't care about your performance over 50-100-200-400 (the left hand side of the speed/duration curve). Not at all in fact. You care about the extreme right hand side. The curve is solid. If you develop one side, the other will tip down. If you taper for the right hand side, the left hand side tip down, and vice versa. You need tune yourself to become a "diesel" swimming machine. Reliable, no cramp, no energy bonk (running out of glucose/glycogen), no stomach issue. Not ultra-fast, but reliable and constant over extra-long distances. You need to stay away from chronical injuries too. I'm not saying you have to perform the marathon with residual fatigue from past workouts. But rather than you should cut your volume enough to get rid of this fatigue, but so that you end up sharpening this speed/duration curve too much, as it may increase the risk of lacking ressources in the last half of the event.

Solar: Thank you ever so much for all of this information. It makes very good sense and it is obvious you know what you are talking about. I agree in my mind and brain, let's see what my body thinks about it all as this training progresses. Sprinter Girl: Oh, come on, it's just water, deeeeeeeep water. As a matter of fact, there has now been talk in the USA about people doing this swim "relay style" which is pretty cool if you think about it. Like making it an annual event. But they are waiting to see if I survive it first!!! (LOL). I have one rule when the swim starts: don't tell me how deep the water is----EVER. I know I have to pass over the Cayman Trench and I don't want to know when that is. But I will have bigger problems than that---finishing 18.6 miles. With a touch of madness, I remain Donna

Thank you all for the advice and suggestions pertaining to both training yardage and tapering. I do want to say to Solar that the vinegar thing does NOT WORK for jellyfish/sea lice stings. The reason it doesn't work is by the time I get out of the water (I may be a half-mile out), too much time has gone by and the stings are already working their harm to my skin. I get better results with Calamine lotion for afterwards. We get large patches of jellyfish (clear ones and thimble ones (brown) in April and May, and the brown ones are horrible. But worse than jellyfish is the sea lice; the eggs of the jellyfish that look like little splinters in the water. When you see them, it is too late. But there is now a product on the market specifically for this so I will be the guinea pig next year and try it out and swim with these little buggers!! This swim is being done solo, just me and an escort boat. This has been something I have wanted to do for 3 years so I made the decision. As Terry put it, I will be a marathon finisher all by myself. No one has ever done this swim, ever. My goal is to swim just under 3mph. Even at 58 now, I do swim 20 to 22 minute miles consistently and the air/wave flow will aid me to maintain this pace for at least 6 hours. And then the water conditions will change. But back to topic, and if you all wouldn't mind, I would like to periodically update you with the mileage/swim times along the way so you can continue to inspire me and make suggestions. We also have a triathlon down here March 18, 2007 if anyone is interested. It is the 5th ITC sponsored one, and Roatan is absolutely beautiful. If you want to go online and read about it, type in Bay Islands 2007 Triathlon and the website pops up. Happy swimming!! Donna

We have a number of marathon swimmers in my area. I know one that will siwm 20 miles a week before a marathon race, others that taper over a month, avoiding all swimming in the last week all with great results. Your own body and age seem to have a large part to play. The older i get the more taper I need. I find my speed is impacted over large milage accumulatoons and in the coming years I plan to do more interval work in the taper week(s). What I suggest is you use some of your longer training swims to practice tapering. This should give you some idea of how your body responds. Since you have a long period of training ahead, it might be worth the small losses in training time (and the occasional taper might head off over use injuries anyway).

You vill swim open water, und you vill LIKE it!-LBJ Leonard: LOL! I VILL swim open water und you VILL swim the sprint 50 quadrathon: 50 fly/back/*** free. This is not a 200 IM. This must be done in a pool. Since I swam the 50 *** once upon a time I can honestly say I have done the quadrathon. :p ... And as you have no doubt gleaned Leonard, before I was reincarnated as a swimmer, I used to be a long distance runner. I blame the advent of the ipod for my running injury and subsequent reincarnation. I also have done aquathons before, which means my toe has actually been in that deep blue stuff. :D This means it is time for you to do your sprint quadrathon. :rofl:

The speed duration curve concept is new to me and impressive. Makes perfect sense but just a different, perhaps more compelling, way to explain what I attempt to do in training. Is that explained in more detail somewhere on-line? I'm not sure. I don't think so, at least not yet. The reason I used this explanation is that the event involved in this thread is so far on the right hand side of the speed/duration curve that I felt I could use it even without being able to back my statement with actual data. This concept is growing as quickly as a teenager in the cycling world nowdays, thanks to the use of power meters which allow us to measure the actual work done with great precision. In the next couple of years, my intent is to adapt these concepts to swimming. I contacted my former boss few days ago about this particular topic. He happens to be a world renown matematicien. In the '80s, he gave birth to a great little algorhitm called the SDI (for Sprint-Distance-Index). That is coeficient used to predict swimming performances over any distance, and to calibrate training. Just give me few PBs over few durations and I can predict what you should be doing at all other pool distances. I want to build on top of what he had previously done, in order to make the speed/duration (called power/duration in cycling) concept to swimmers. They make life interesting. Absolutely Still, the shorter races seem to improve my sense of sharpness and strength for the points in longer races where I may need a bit more speed. I agree with that too. After all, as you know, at one point the "pool torpedo" swimmers literally took over the OW long distance world scene, with very few spots left to pure OW swimmers. And that's not over. Wait until the 10k becomes an official Olympic event. I'd probably bet my shirt on Hackett. ...Then we design training tasks that simulate those experiences and learn to perform those tasks progressively better.... ...After all, one can never really feel lactates being buffered or capillarization occuring.... ...Training to develop specific racing skills and strategies is always stimulating and engaging. This is very inspiring. Meaningful as opposed to meaningless swimming. Coaching is an Art as much as (and probably even more than) a cold science. Cheers

After reading this thread, I don't think even aspiring dictator Leonard Jansen can get me to swim in the open water....;) You vill swim open water, und you vill LIKE it! -LBJ

This means it is time for you to do your sprint quadrathon. In order to do that, I'd have to actually be able to sprint. If they had an 85+ age group in the meet, I might have some company while I "sprinted." I'd also have to start off the blocks - I'd sooner jump off the Empire State Building. At least I'm sure I could make the distance. -LBJ

I'd love to submit some times for analysis/prediction. Any guidelines on selection/submission of samples? I think the formula works better when you supply a short, and a longer event for the same stroke (e.g. 50 and 400 free). This is to issue all standard pool events (1500 and less). But it can also predict any irregular event given two times supplied for the same stroke. Say you have a time over 400 and a time over 1000, it can predict a third event even if it's irregular (e.g. 3400).