Long Distance Event Training

I have entered the Swim Around Lido Key event for April 14th. It is about a 7mile swim. The longest I’ve done previous is 3 miles, and that’s sorta like a long workout - took me 74 minutes. Seven miles is a bit longer and I’m wishing for some friendly advice. Would anyone like to help me in my training for this? I’m wondering about the last week, or “taper week”. I don’t think I should cut back to much less than 5-6000/day, but maybe I’m wrong here. I’m getting in 8-10,000 on Saturdays now, and have to limit my weekday swims to 5-6000 as it is. I just figure I want to be rested, but don’t want to over do the resting. Thanks in advance! The taper is a function of many things.. but how long your training has been going is a big factor. Also your personal conditioning is a factor. If you have been training for a few months.. daily, then you have more than a taper week.. But you should decrease both the volume and intensity of training steadily over a 2 week period.. and yes you should be well under 5-6000 the week before the race.

Hi Celestial - Good Luck and hope for calm conditions for the swim. You have only 2+ weeks to go. IMO, your current volume is ok and, even if it wasn't, it does not sound like you can increase it anyway, so don't change that aspect. You don't indicate the intensity level of your swims though which is the key part of any taper program - backing down on the intensity, so the body can rest. You also did not indicate if the practices include long, non-stop swims. Having done a few swims of this length, this is what I would suggest for the next 2+ weeks: a) Today - April 6: Keep the same training routine you have been doing. If you have not been doing any 1-2 hour non-stop swims, I would make 2-3 of these practices that kind of thing. b) April 7: don't do 8-10,000 on this Saturday. Maybe drop back to 5-6,000. c) April 8 - 11: I suggest keeping the volume about where you are at. if you have been doing some intensity training, reduce that amount by 50%. I would swim so your heart rate is in the "comfortable" aerobic zone - a pace you can maintain "forever." d) April 12-13: Keep your volume up and only 800-1000 yards that is intense (less if you have not been doing that much). Use these two days to try the suit and googles you plan to use. If you are wearing a wetsuit, chafing could be an issue (back of your neck), so you will want to have Glide or another equally nice lubricant. If you are not wearing a wetsuit, same thing applies to shoulder straps and suit underarm sections. For swims like this, I never wanted to drop the volume like I would for pool races. BUT, I did drop the intensity and focused on smooth swimming. It is NOT the volume that will make you tired during these 2+ weeks, it is the intensity - especially legs. Oh - almost forgot - if you are doing weights, dryland, bicycling, etc., cut all of that out for the final week. If your legs feel really tired from dryland/bicycling, you can drop that stuff even now. It takes legs a long time to recover from hard non-swim training. Hope this helps. Paul

Paul, VERY helpful. Much of my workouts since, I don’t know, forever, includes hard intervals & long distances. I helped a friend train for the Ultraman (Jamie Harris) and she won the swim and women’s overall, and I am faster than her, but I did everything she did. Last Saturday about 6500 of my 8000 was pretty high quality. But no 2 hour straight swims. I will be (was planning on it anyway) doing a 3 hour fairly solid straight swim on the 31st (I have to jump out of the SCY pool into the LCM pool after one hour because the FSU team has the LCM pool until 10am. I will most certainly incorporate your advice, and I appreciate you more than you know!

Airborne, Thank you, good advice. I’m afraid to go below 4000 though.

Sunruh, you are right, and I don’t have much experience, which is why I asked for advice!!!

this is were experience a lot of experience comes into play as said, it all depends on your leadup and then there is you. look at how many didnt go there seed times in the 1650 at the ncaa champs (both mens and womens)

Airborne, Thank you, good advice. I’m afraid to go below 4000 though. Research on tapering is all over the place, but most of it indicates 40-60% drop in volume is the sweet spot.. But the problem with most of the research is that it is on high performance athletes, so it is a fuzzy area when it comes to the average person, and masters for that matter. One piece of research that might be helpful is that body composition plays a part in it.. and women generally require less taper than men. ( less muscle mass ) What you should do is document whatever you do for this race. and next time you at least can look back and change your strategy. It will not be easy because you are doing an open water event, and there are many variables that could impact performance on race day..

Thanks for the additional info. If it were me, I would keep your volume where it is - except for April 7. Assuming your weekday volume is about 3500 high quality out of 5,000, I would maintain that % of quality swimming until April 4-7. At that point, I would reduce the amount of high quality by about 300-400/day until you are at 1500 out of 5,000. I suspect you are like me in that I enjoy training hard and the idea of tapering volume AND intensity is mentally hard. I have tried long tapers and short drop-dead tapers. I find that keeping the volume up with reduced intensity works very well for open water swims. Good Luck! Paul

I think Windrath and Airborne have provided good suggestions. I'm wondering how you feel at the end of a week of training heading into Monday's practice after your rest day (Sunday)? Do you feel fully recovered from the work during the previous week? The Sundays and nights when you rest are small tapers during which your body makes partial (daily and weekly) adaptations to the work. But now comes the big reward! It seems to me that your objective at this point is to become fully rested before the race in order to take the most advantage of the work you've done, and become "more and more" rested each day. Eat right to fuel the adaptation and get the most out of it. You can make daily judgments and adjustments to the suggestions above, depending on how rested you feel you are becoming. Take care and wishing you the best race possible, Celeste. Looking forward to hearing how it went.

Thank you everyone, Paul, Bill, . I've been "absent" from the forums for a couple of years, and this was a wonderful welcome back!! I will definitely be taking notes on what I do for "next time" and following your advice. I'll sign off now for a couple of weeks, and then let you know how I did (or died - how do you spell that?).