I hope no one minds, but I could use your input. And if I repeat myself, it is for the benefit of any new people to this forum.
I am training for what I call an epic swim; a swim from the island of Roatan to Utila in August of 2008, the year I turn 60. The distance is about 19 miles. After months of not swimming by choice, I started re-training this past January 15th. Due to previous swimming injuries, I decided to not leap into it but to train smart so I don't have any downtime due to injury flareups.
In January, I only swam Monday-Wed-Fridays and the yardage started small. My total from Jan 15 to the 31st was 8,800 yds.
In February, I added a fourth swim day, Saturdays. I decided to make Mondays and Fridays drill and sprint days, and Wednesdays and Saturdays are distance days, many times I time them to see progress. My total yardage from Feb 1 to Feb 24th is 26,980 yds. There were 6 days in there the ocean was angry and the swims were of short duration.
Two weeks ago, I timed my 2nd 2 mile swim and it is down from a 54:07 to a 51:02 so I see progress, and not just in time but how trashed I felt hours after it. Last Wednesday, I timed a 1 mile swim and it was a 27:01 so that is rather slow compared to the 2 mile, but hey, we all have off days.
Since that time, I have been extremely fatigued, I actually did not swim this past Saturday because I needed the rest. It is difficult doing a load of laundry. Now, I do not take vitamins because there aren't any here but I plan on getting a suitcase full when I go home to Texas in April. Also, it is hard to hydrate during training because the little island kids steal my gatorade and water off a chair on the beach. But I am not sure how important hydration is for a mile or 2 mile swim, but when I get into the 4 milers and I am about ready to break into those, I guess I'll have to figure a way like wear them around my neck or something.
My questions are: do I need to incorporate periodization into my training routine (periodization is where you swim so many weeks on, and so many days off on a regular basis); what vitamins or replacement products would benefit me as I move upward into more mileage? The reason I am asking these questions is when I go home the end of April for a visit, I will be able to buy anything that may help my body regulate the training I am incurring. The only thing here is Gatorade and my problem with that is it may take so much of it, that my stomach will be sloshing around full of liquid; not a good thing.
Sorry this is long, but wanted to layout the groundwork. So, periodization, pros and cons? Replacement products? Vitamins?
Donna
Parents
Former Member
Donna -
Periodization is more than just the training pattern you describe, but there is no question that you should incorporate the easy/hard principle from periodization into your training. You have PLENTY of time to get ready for your swim, so adding some rest periods will not affect your ability to complete this at all. When I was training for Manhattan, I typically did 3-5 weeks "on" and 1 week "easy". Within a week, typically Mondays and Fridays were "easy", Wednesday was "moderate" and all the other days were "hard". In my yearly cycle, typically, October is off/recovery, November & December are technique and start endurance building, Jan - April are Endurance and then the May - September start as speed building and peaking and then go to racing. Note that everyone is different and I recover very fast from heavy training, so the above might be a bit much for someone who recovers less quickly. In all phases of training, I place a premium on technique and will slow up to get better technique rather than bull through and reinforce mistakes.
Keep in mind that the primary principle of periodization is specificity of training at the right time. Doing sprints, for example, probably has little overall effect on your ability to cover 19 miles. I would suggest that the primary abilities needed for this, in order of aquisition, should be: technique, endurance and speed-strength. The reasoning is thusly:
1) technique is the absolute basis of efficient swimming and any training done with inefficient technique is wasteful. If you have godd technique, you can do more endurance training and if you have good endurance, you can do more speed-strength work. (More on these next.) Personally, I like the Total Immersion approach (no, I'm not a paid "shill"), but I am not going to say that other techniques don't work well too. Regardless of what you think is good technique, it is the most critical skill.
2) Endurance - This is the most general physiological skill and the one that has the highest physiological premium to it in terms of your swim. You are going to be in the water a long time and that is endurance, pure and simple. The ability to efficiently move your body through the water for a long period of time at a moderate pace is what the swim calls for and therefore is what you will eventually want to work up to doing on a regular basis. Once you get to the point where you can do 2-3 hours on a fairly consistent basis, you will probably have more than enough gas in the tank for your swim.
3) speed-strength - Although your swim is mostly raw endurance, you will need to be able to shift gears to something higher than pure endurance to fight waves, currents, etc. This is NOT speed, but rather a higher speed than can be held for a few minutes at a time (or more) and can be called upon whenever needed without incurring huge oxygen debt. Better than the typical speed work practiced in most masters programs, I'd suggest that you consider fartlek and/or timed accelerations during SOME of your longer endurance swims. Fartlek, when done correctly, is NOT, NOT, NOT a series of random sprints followed by slow swimming. Rather, it is a constant change of speeds/distances/intervals depending on how you feel. Timed accelerations are great - you go hard every x minutes during a swim for a given time or distance. For example, in a 2 hour swim, you swim at a good endurance pace and then every, say, on every 10 minute mark, do a 200 hard and then go right back to your endurance pace. (Start with say, 1/2 hour going hard every 5 minutes for 50 yards and gradually work your way up.)
Those are just a few thoughts off the top of my head (and I'm supposed to be working right now), so I'll stop pontificating.
Wish I was doing that swim - it sounds way cool.
-LBJ
Donna -
Periodization is more than just the training pattern you describe, but there is no question that you should incorporate the easy/hard principle from periodization into your training. You have PLENTY of time to get ready for your swim, so adding some rest periods will not affect your ability to complete this at all. When I was training for Manhattan, I typically did 3-5 weeks "on" and 1 week "easy". Within a week, typically Mondays and Fridays were "easy", Wednesday was "moderate" and all the other days were "hard". In my yearly cycle, typically, October is off/recovery, November & December are technique and start endurance building, Jan - April are Endurance and then the May - September start as speed building and peaking and then go to racing. Note that everyone is different and I recover very fast from heavy training, so the above might be a bit much for someone who recovers less quickly. In all phases of training, I place a premium on technique and will slow up to get better technique rather than bull through and reinforce mistakes.
Keep in mind that the primary principle of periodization is specificity of training at the right time. Doing sprints, for example, probably has little overall effect on your ability to cover 19 miles. I would suggest that the primary abilities needed for this, in order of aquisition, should be: technique, endurance and speed-strength. The reasoning is thusly:
1) technique is the absolute basis of efficient swimming and any training done with inefficient technique is wasteful. If you have godd technique, you can do more endurance training and if you have good endurance, you can do more speed-strength work. (More on these next.) Personally, I like the Total Immersion approach (no, I'm not a paid "shill"), but I am not going to say that other techniques don't work well too. Regardless of what you think is good technique, it is the most critical skill.
2) Endurance - This is the most general physiological skill and the one that has the highest physiological premium to it in terms of your swim. You are going to be in the water a long time and that is endurance, pure and simple. The ability to efficiently move your body through the water for a long period of time at a moderate pace is what the swim calls for and therefore is what you will eventually want to work up to doing on a regular basis. Once you get to the point where you can do 2-3 hours on a fairly consistent basis, you will probably have more than enough gas in the tank for your swim.
3) speed-strength - Although your swim is mostly raw endurance, you will need to be able to shift gears to something higher than pure endurance to fight waves, currents, etc. This is NOT speed, but rather a higher speed than can be held for a few minutes at a time (or more) and can be called upon whenever needed without incurring huge oxygen debt. Better than the typical speed work practiced in most masters programs, I'd suggest that you consider fartlek and/or timed accelerations during SOME of your longer endurance swims. Fartlek, when done correctly, is NOT, NOT, NOT a series of random sprints followed by slow swimming. Rather, it is a constant change of speeds/distances/intervals depending on how you feel. Timed accelerations are great - you go hard every x minutes during a swim for a given time or distance. For example, in a 2 hour swim, you swim at a good endurance pace and then every, say, on every 10 minute mark, do a 200 hard and then go right back to your endurance pace. (Start with say, 1/2 hour going hard every 5 minutes for 50 yards and gradually work your way up.)
Those are just a few thoughts off the top of my head (and I'm supposed to be working right now), so I'll stop pontificating.
Wish I was doing that swim - it sounds way cool.
-LBJ
