5K Training Advice

On the preparation question... My experience is that you are asking 2 seperate questions (actually a lot more). The first is how to prepare for a 5K swim and the other is how to prepare for an open water swim. I swam in the ocean growing up and had no problem transitioning to an open water race years ago. How you will handle it depends on your background. If open water is new then you need to swim in open water as much as possible. I also strongly advise that you find a 1 mile open water swim to do before hand if you can. There is a lot to learn and much of it is best learned in the water. The second question you raise is how to prepare for a 5K swim. Again that depends on the type of training you have been doing. If you are a distance freestyler, the transition will be easier. If you love to sprint 50s, look forward to an "uncomfortable" experience. Keep in mind that even if you regularly race a 1500 meters or 1650 yards in the pool, 5000 meters is a completely different animal. My approach to a recent 5K swim was to do a 1 mile swim 2 weeks before (heck I even follow my own advise). I learned or relearned everything I needed for the 5K. It was the smartest race I ever swam. For physical preparation I did all freestyle. 5K to 6K workouts broken down various ways. The focus was to go into the final week being able to swim my race pace doing short rest intervals so I would get the feel for the race but not burn myself out. I am also a big fan of staying in control the first 400-500 meters of the race. I always find myself passing people that went out too fast and blew up. I try to take a negative split approach to the swim. However, when I was in top shape and swimming faster, I was loathe to let a leading group get away. So you have to ask yourself if you think you are going to finish in the top 5, you had better not let the lead group gey away.

For physical preparation I did all freestyle. 5K to 6K workouts broken down various ways. The focus was to go into the final week being able to swim my race pace doing short rest intervals so I would get the feel for the race but not burn myself out. How many times a week do you swim?

If I am training for a 5K my goal in the past used to be to swim 6 days a week, but it has been years since I was able to do that. These days I aim for 5 days a week. My body needs more rest and if I swim more than that, the quality of my workouts decrease. I also use to aim for 5K to 7K in a workout but I have reduced those targets as well. That being said I have swam 5Ks training only 3 days a week 4K to 5K a workout. When I do that I just have to reduce my expectations about my results, but I can still have a strong swim and have a great time. However, if you want to race the distance and not just swim it, you have to put in some serious yards or be very fit and have great technique. I recently did a 5K. I have been training for (5 to 6 days/week) and racing sprint triathlons which take about the same time as a 5K. I switched over to pure swimming for 3 weeks. I had a great time. My fitness was high and my technique good. I just had to live with swimming below my potential. I still had a great time.

I found this thread great to read through as I am also preparing for a 5k OW swim in about 10 weeks. (Bonaire EcoSwim) This will be my first time swimming in OW. Unfortunately living in rural Ontario there is no OW to swim in, all my training has and will be in 25m pools. I know that we do get to swim the race course and have a few practice swims, I will be on island 4 days before race day. I have been swimming seriously for about a year now. I am a 34 year-old male with 17+ years of experience with weight training/nutrition and fitness/bodybuilding background. Currently just amped my swimming up to 4Xdays week (approx. 2500m - 4000m a session right now) and cut my weight training back to 3X/week. I may even swim 5X/week and cut weights further - not sure yet. I know in the past few weeks since starting to focus on training for this race my swimming has improved incredibly, it is great to be involved in a sport where you can see and feel results week to week as opposed to year to year (bodybuilding). Genetically I have swimming genes/DNA/physique and wish I had found this sport much more sooner but better late than never. I absolutely love it and am looking forward to this race/trip/vacation. Reading the posts here from the original poster's query it seems my biggest obstacle will be a total lack of OW distance swimming; sighting, current/waves, pack/group swimming. (I am going to travel to a 50m pool a few times in November to train.) Always looking forward to any tips/advice from you more experienced swimmers. I have a swimmer from a Masters team in FL also doing this race sending me workouts - any workouts anyone here might suggest for an OW 5k in a SCM pool would be great and appreciated. I will be sure to check out the link and sites suggested earlier in the thread. Thanks in advance for feedback!

Todd My first piece of advice is to stop your weight training now. Use that time to increase your swim training. You might find it useful to practice sighting in your pool swims. Finally, if you have the chance swim the course a couple of days ahead of the race. Swimming hard is not necessary on that day. Use the time to pick out prominent landmarks to help sighting in the race. It will help immensely with the navigation. Good luck.

My first OWS was summer 2007. I tried practicing sighting in the pool the couple of weeks before the swim and found that it was a whole different ball game come race time. That swim was 3K. However, I did find that within 500 meters I had acclimated to all aspects of OWS (sighting, crowds, etc.)short of ocean waves since I was in a lake. I just did my first 5K at the Big Shoulders event and found that my training regimen for that event of using the last 2-3 weeks for almost nothing but swimming 3-5K non-stop in the pool prepared me really well for that swim. If I did interrupt that regimen, it was to do a day that involved nothing but 500 or 1000 yards negative splitting by 100. Good luck, and have fun. It is a such a great sport for mind, body, and soul.

Gary Emich calls it "alligator eyes". Great description

Thanks for the feedback guys! I don't think I could completely stop all weight training, even for 2 months. It is much too ingrained in my routine/lifestyle. I have cut way back already in volume and in intensity. I am quite streamlined/flexible, no "bodybuilder" mass: I'm 6', 175lbs. Even the Olympic swimmers do weights/dryland work, so I think still doing basic exercises 2-3 days/week should be OK. I certainly won't be adding muscle...gone are the days of 16 sets for chest. I'm really focusing on core/ab work and flexibility as these I know are very beneficial to swimming. The trick is going to be fitting it all in; timewise and energy wise. Question: If I was to both swim and do weights on the same day (double shot) what is more beneficial to swimming to do first? (I will be resting a few hours + and definitely eating between these two workouts.) I have tried both and they both feel pretty good, but I think I prefer gym, then the pool. Thoughts?? I will start practicing sighting techniques in the pool. Yes, we can swim the race course in practice swims, that will be indeed be a huge bonus to feel what the ocean is like (sighting, current, sheer volume) versus a 25m pool w/ ropes and walls. Thanks!

I'm no expert on weight training so I'm not the best source. That being said, I always did weights after my swim workout. I can't tell you why other than to say I enjoyed my swim workouts and if I did weights first I felt all tied up. Maybe I just didn't stretch enough. Intellectually, I thought doing weights last would give me a chance to target specific muscles and overload them. The following day I always made sure I did a lot of stretching and a LONG warm up swim. I still think though, that you might go with swim specific resistance training instead of weights, and even those I would back off with 3 weeks to go. Olympic swimmers have so fine tuned their bodies the same rules don't necessarily apply. They also have 24 hour coaching to help prevent overtraining or other training mistakes. But in the end, no one is paying us to do this, and there is no Olympics in sight, so do what gets you most excited about swimming.

Practice swimming with your eyes closed,..it will help you to swim in a straight line. Also, practice looking at the end of the pool,..Gary Emich calls it "alligator eyes".