My plan to become a walk-on

Training with a team trumps training alone IMO. As someone said, you don't want to pound tons of yardage with the wrong technique. Having a coach and teammates will give you new ideas and perspective and push you beyond what you think is possible. I swim much faster with teams as compared to swimming alone. Is there a reason that you are planning on training alone and then 1x/ week w/ masters? Without a doubt, I'd swim with your community college (just talk to the coach), high school team, OR preferably with a USAS team. This would give you the best shot at getting up to speed. Many coaches are very accommodating and would let you try out a few practices. Good luck! I'm a 21 year old male, 5'8, around 155 lbs, with 7-8% body fat. I've been swimming now for about 1 year total. My background is in cross country, basketball, and track. I've dropped my times quite a bit in a year; 50 free from 28 high to 26.69 100 free from 1:10 to 1:00.89 200 free from 2:24 to 2:16 500 free from 7:00 to 6:19 I'm from Missouri and I've got one more semester at a community college to get my associates degree, then I plan on transferring to Drury Univesity or Missouri State. I really want to walk on to one of their teams and I figure my best choice is to go the distance route, the 500 and up to have a chance at making one of these teams. Right now I'm swimming 30,000yds/m a week and doing dryland work (weights) 3x a week. My stroke is very solid, keeping me injury free (knock on wood), and I figure I can get up to around 50,000+ yds a week by the start of summer and train like a madman this summer before fall semester. I can swim with a masters team once a week without having to pay a monthly fee and the rest of my training is solo. My test meet will be the end of July, Show-me-State games in Columbia. Any words of advice?

Training with a team trumps training alone IMO. As someone said, you don't want to pound tons of yardage with the wrong technique. Having a coach and teammates will give you new ideas and perspective and push you beyond what you think is possible. I swim much faster with teams as compared to swimming alone. Is there a reason that you are planning on training alone and then 1x/ week w/ masters? Without a doubt, I'd swim with your community college (just talk to the coach), high school team, OR preferably with a USAS team. This would give you the best shot at getting up to speed. Many coaches are very accommodating and would let you try out a few practices. Good luck! I'm a 21 year old male, 5'8, around 155 lbs, with 7-8% body fat. I've been swimming now for about 1 year total. My background is in cross country, basketball, and track. I've dropped my times quite a bit in a year; 50 free from 28 high to 26.69 100 free from 1:10 to 1:00.89 200 free from 2:24 to 2:16 500 free from 7:00 to 6:19 I'm from Missouri and I've got one more semester at a community college to get my associates degree, then I plan on transferring to Drury Univesity or Missouri State. I really want to walk on to one of their teams and I figure my best choice is to go the distance route, the 500 and up to have a chance at making one of these teams. Right now I'm swimming 30,000yds/m a week and doing dryland work (weights) 3x a week. My stroke is very solid, keeping me injury free (knock on wood), and I figure I can get up to around 50,000+ yds a week by the start of summer and train like a madman this summer before fall semester. I can swim with a masters team once a week without having to pay a monthly fee and the rest of my training is solo. My test meet will be the end of July, Show-me-State games in Columbia. Any words of advice?