How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:07:56 GMT

My peak here was 4996 yards (rounded off to 4995!) at age 51, What a pity. 4-5 yards more and you could sing "5001 at 51" :D But peaking at 50 must give hope to a lot of folks here... Jim started swimming a few minutes before conception Don't we all do? :cool: :D

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

jim thornton — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:43:37 GMT

4400 comfortably at 57 is indeed very impressive. How many years have you been swimming, Jim? What age do you consider was the peak? I suppose comfort is in the eye of the beholder. By comfort I probably meant not pushing clearly into discomfort. I did not mean the kind of lazy swirling of a manatee in a Miami Seaquarium hottub for manatees, where heads of lettuce occasionally bump up against my semi-awake jowls, triggering a chomp. The latter is probably a better definition of comfort. I started swimming as a young youth, then swam up through one year of college, took a break (where I still swam on my own now and then for stress relief) then took up masters swimming officially in 1984 and have been pretty regular with it ever since. My own peak seems to have been around the age of 50, though thanks to evolving suit technology, my times have not fallen off too drastically since then. However, with the imminent illegalizing of said technology, I brace myself for a sudden and whopping plummet! Note: the not-uncomfortable 4400 above was swum in a regular jammer by a Toblerone-fed body supplemented by a packet of Gu to prevent exertional hypoglycemia. I am going to try the hour swim this year in mid-January with my B70, and hope this will net a few more yards, albeit with a much increased level of discomfort as its price. My peak here was 4996 yards (rounded off to 4995!) at age 51, and has gone down fairly steadily to last year's 4700 at age 56. Check my vlog in the near future--I am hoping to plot out a correlation between actual practice miles per year with that year's swimming performance/speed.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:40:53 GMT

4400 comfortably at 57 is indeed very impressive. How many years have you been swimming, Jim? What age do you consider was the peak? Jim started swimming a few minutes before conception and hasn't stopped since.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:54:21 GMT

Wow, I'm slow. On my best days I cover a mile in 40 minutes, so my best hour would be right at 1.5mi/2400m. FWIW, I haven't done any interval or speed training since I started swimming again this year. I am now training for triathlons and will be working on upping my pace over the next several months. -eric

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:20:44 GMT

4400 comfortably at 57 is indeed very impressive. How many years have you been swimming, Jim? What age do you consider was the peak? I find that shallower pools (4'-4'5") are difficult to swim in. When I tried backstroke, as soon as I started my legs sank. Also I wonder if the buoyancy in chlorine pools and ozone pools are different? I hope some time early next year I can progress to the second slowest posted in this thread :)

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:35:41 GMT

The reason I was asking this question is that I am a cozy turtle, crawling just a little over 2000 yards in an hour . Actually it depends on what you are doing, I thought you were asking how much distance I can swim for hour non-stop as fast as I can. Sometimes if I'm doing speed work with very long rest, I probably don't do a lot more than 2000 meters, so it depends So it seems different pools, and getting used to each one, have apparently different effect on our swimming? of course, the closer the wall the less strokes you take, you get less tired, but a good swimmer is good in any pool, just look at the best guys that compete in a 50 meter pool, when they compete in a 25 yard pool, they place in very similar positions, not equal (some guys only shine in 25 meter pools) but very similar

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 13:23:59 GMT

....... there's only one way to find out

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:06:27 GMT

Everyone, thank you so much for the replies! The reason I was asking this question is that I am a cozy turtle, crawling just a little over 2000 yards in an hour :p. I want to work on the speed and intensity within 1 hour frame since my practice time is limited, so knowing how others do would give me a reference what goal to set at each stage. The replies confirmed that I'm too far behind and I need to work much harder. I am not into racing, but really hope to improve my speed and endurance. On another note: I used to swim in a 25-meter pool, then switched to a 25-yard one over a year ago. Upon switching, I was not used to the new pool and couldn't swim as well in the beginning. Now after more than a year, this past Christmas I swam again in the former 25-meter pool, and guess what? I wasn't used to it any more; it took me 3-4 more strokes to cross the pool than when I last used that pool (also got plenty bruises on my hand hitting the lane line), even though my swimming has no doubt improved significantly since then. So it seems different pools, and getting used to each one, have apparently different effect on our swimming?

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:53:49 GMT

Perspective from a slower swimmer. I could swim 3,000 meters in one hour, but I usually am able or will swim between 2,000 and 2,500. I only swim three times weekly, one hour each time with coach, with a bunch of master swimmers.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:12:41 GMT

Mr. Q, a couple years back, I did 100 on 1:20 for the whole practice, and did indeed finish a 4500 yards. You might try doing an actual nonstop hour swim. It's different than you might imagine, and extrapolating from "it's easy to hold 100s on 1:20" to doing this for an uninterrupted hour might prove different than you think. Maybe you will pick up the speed; maybe you will hold it steady; and maybe you will tire out. But it's a different experience than you think it will be if you've never done it. Hey Jim, From what ddl wrote, I thought he was more interested in an hour of training, not an hour time trial. I am hoping ddl will stop by after his festivities and give us a little more detail on what he is trying to get from this information, so maybe we can provide what he is actually looking for. I think our team might actually be putting together a 1 hour postal for the first time this year. I will let you know if I manage to break 1:20 pace.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

jim thornton — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:38:12 GMT

When is "the suit" officially outlawed? Have the 1-hour postal authorities said anything yet about whether wearing one is kosher? Once again, it seems that if you want to place well, you might want to squeeze in your hour of floatation assisted swimming-like maneuvers sometime before Jan. 1.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

jim thornton — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:34:07 GMT

Yes. The rules as of Jan 1 apply, so tech suits are OK. Ah, great! One last chance to dead man float my way to glory!

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

knelson — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:22:18 GMT

Have the 1-hour postal authorities said anything yet about whether wearing one is kosher? Yes. The rules as of Jan 1 apply, so tech suits are OK.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:46:45 GMT

ddl, I can hold 1:20s comfortably for long periods of time, so all freestyle for an hour, I would be able to do 4500 yards. But a normal workout, with kick, drill and stroke, I am completing about 3200 yards in about 50 minutes. That is a 1:33+ average pace, but my freestyle will be 1:20s or faster, my kick at 2:00, my stroke at 1:40, etc. What is your objective? Maybe people can give you better information if we know what you want to learn from it.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:24:08 GMT

4500 meters

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Rykno — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:15:01 GMT

I could swim about 2800-3000m in a 1hr swim

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

jim thornton — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:20:02 GMT

Hello, Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms. DDL, Your question is an interesting one and timely. I went to the Y today with the intention of swimming an easy hour swim to kind of get myself into the mindset for a higher intensity "official" hour swim in mid-January. Usually, I will warm up before practice, maybe even do the first 500 yards with open turns just to let my back unkink. But today I just started swimming with flip turns, trying to stay smooth and not at all come close to the lactate threshold, but not stop either--just a long smooth cruise. Given the kind of shape I am in right now, I doubt I could have swum at any speed for an hour without getting a little tired. But the object was just as you asked--how long can you go in an hour without really pushing it. The answer, for me, today, was 4400 yards. I'm 57. By contrast, these are the 1-hour swims I have done in the past when I pushed it and wore a body suit: age 51: 4996 yards age 55: 4825 yards age 56: 4700 yards My all time best 1 hour, I held about a 1:12 pace per 100. Today's more lacksadaisacal effort, I held about a 1:21 pace. Mr. Q, a couple years back, I did 100 on 1:20 for the whole practice, and did indeed finish a 4500 yards. You might try doing an actual nonstop hour swim. It's different than you might imagine, and extrapolating from "it's easy to hold 100s on 1:20" to doing this for an uninterrupted hour might prove different than you think. Maybe you will pick up the speed; maybe you will hold it steady; and maybe you will tire out. But it's a different experience than you think it will be if you've never done it.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Allen Stark — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:34:59 GMT

Just check out the Postal One Hour swim results from this year.Starting 1/1/10 you can do the 2010 1 hr swim.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

Former Member — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:11:18 GMT

2 miles (3300 yds) pretty comfortably , maybe even with a short rest in there.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

tjrpatt — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 03:11:44 GMT

Last year, I did 4920 yards in the 1 hour postal. I hope to break 5K this year. Depending on the practice, I can get 3,000 to 4000 done in a hour.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

aquageek — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:26:32 GMT

I'll let you know after Jan. 8, last year was 4875.

RE: How much distance can you swim in 1 hour?

gigi — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:47:16 GMT

I have no idea. This is now on my list of "things to do over Christmas vacation." I'll report back after Jan 3.