I have a swim partner right now, a young girl from Scotland who is training for our triathlon here; she pushes me big time even tho I could be her mother (she is always on my feet, I can't get rid of her!!)
I was a natural backstroker for 40 plus years, turned distance freestyle and no more backstroke.
Here's our personal challenge and wanted to see if any of you would be interested. I have never been a butterflyer except when I was young and didn't know any better and did the 400 IM, and I never butterfrogged; only dolphin kick.
On March 19th to build a different kind of strength, we are going to add to our training with distance fly (yes, I must have dementia).
From shore to a buoy, it is 350 yards and our goal is to do the entire thing fly. When I come up with challenges for myself, I always say Why Not?
So, my friend Jo and I are going to start training for the 350 fly and we don't have any turns, it is straight, non-stop to the buoy. I remember trying this same challenge for myself several years ago, and only got to about 150 yards and DIED. But it is always good to challenge ourselves in something we don't normally swim.
So, for you flyers out there and non-flyers, I ask my standard question: Why Not? Are you game? And if not fly, why not another stroke that gives you grief? All that can happen is you may not succeed at a particular distance, but you are giving your body a rest from its norm and moving into areas of different training.
I hope to report more than enough hilarious stories along the way toward this goal.
Donna
Parents
Former Member
Hi Donna,
I really like the results from swimming a lot of fly. My core is way stronger since I put fly into my normal training routine. In my usual training schedule I swim 4 X 2 hour swims per week. One of those days has fly as a major component and I do anywhere from 500 to 1000 yards in the (typically) 4000-5000 yard workout. Sometimes I do the Jenny Thompson swims (a bunch of 25s) with a two beat kick and breathing every other stroke. Sometimes I do the distance swims where I use the three beat kick and stretch out my stroke. For these I will do either 5 X 200 or 2 X 500. My training pool is at 9000 feet and I can't remember ever doing a 1000 fly here. The swim that I mentioned to you was in Denver, at a meager 5280 feet (almost sea level!).
As for the distance swim, I'm not an open-water swimmer, except in my fantasies. When I used to live in Hawaii I would regularly train for the Rough Water swim but just never got around to swimming it. I never had trouble snorkeling or body surfing but swimming was another matter. I'm POSITIVE that there is a school of great white sharks that has, like a blood hound, been trained in the scent of my body oils. They will find me anywhere in the world where I'm swimming in open water (even inland fresh-water lakes, I believe).
This is weird because I'm not nervous around barracudas or moray eels, both of which have shared my swim space many times.
Otherwise, I'd be happy to join you for your very ambitious swim. Wish I had the nerve. Perhaps I could arrange to be in another body of open water somewhere else at the time to be certain that ALL the GW sharks are looking for me and not in your vicinity.
-- mel
Hi Donna,
I really like the results from swimming a lot of fly. My core is way stronger since I put fly into my normal training routine. In my usual training schedule I swim 4 X 2 hour swims per week. One of those days has fly as a major component and I do anywhere from 500 to 1000 yards in the (typically) 4000-5000 yard workout. Sometimes I do the Jenny Thompson swims (a bunch of 25s) with a two beat kick and breathing every other stroke. Sometimes I do the distance swims where I use the three beat kick and stretch out my stroke. For these I will do either 5 X 200 or 2 X 500. My training pool is at 9000 feet and I can't remember ever doing a 1000 fly here. The swim that I mentioned to you was in Denver, at a meager 5280 feet (almost sea level!).
As for the distance swim, I'm not an open-water swimmer, except in my fantasies. When I used to live in Hawaii I would regularly train for the Rough Water swim but just never got around to swimming it. I never had trouble snorkeling or body surfing but swimming was another matter. I'm POSITIVE that there is a school of great white sharks that has, like a blood hound, been trained in the scent of my body oils. They will find me anywhere in the world where I'm swimming in open water (even inland fresh-water lakes, I believe).
This is weird because I'm not nervous around barracudas or moray eels, both of which have shared my swim space many times.
Otherwise, I'd be happy to join you for your very ambitious swim. Wish I had the nerve. Perhaps I could arrange to be in another body of open water somewhere else at the time to be certain that ALL the GW sharks are looking for me and not in your vicinity.
-- mel
