I live in Honolulu, and have been an open water swimmer for years. I greatly prefer swimming 100s, 50s and 200s. When I was a "real" swimmer 25 years ago, my races were 100 free, 100 back and 100 fly. However, there are few masters meets options here, and most if not all of the swimming races are open water. Too bad that all the open water races are longer than 200 meters (ha ha). Becasue I love swimming, I have tortured myself into getting into shape for 1 to 3 mile open water races here. Over the past several years, I've had 4 shoulder surgeries. I came back from 1-3 fairly easily. I got back in the water from the 4th surgery 2 years ago. But this time I have not been able to get my aerobic capacity up to where I could do 8 or 10 500s at a good pace/// and because I haven't been able to do that, my open water swimming now stinks. I just hate swimming 400s and 500s. Swimming a hard set based on 100s is what I really like to do.
Can anyone suggest ways I can prepare for open water races without the boredom and monotony of swimming endless pace 500s?
Parents
Former Member
Just because you are distance open water swimmer doesn’t mean you have to swim 500’s in pool practice. The 4 x 500 set can become 20 x 100’s. The key is maintaining a strong aerobic heart rate over the course of the set. One of my favorite distance pool sets is:
5 x 50
4 x 100
3 x 150
2 x 200
1 x 250
Two rounds through. Keeping relatively tight intervals, maintaining pace, of roughly: 15 seconds, regardless of length of swims with a one or two minute break between rounds.
The reason I like this set is each round equals 1750, twice through its 3500. For whatever reason, this set psychologically seems to swim fast and it feels like a lot of yards in a short time.
Just because you are distance open water swimmer doesn’t mean you have to swim 500’s in pool practice. The 4 x 500 set can become 20 x 100’s. The key is maintaining a strong aerobic heart rate over the course of the set. One of my favorite distance pool sets is:
5 x 50
4 x 100
3 x 150
2 x 200
1 x 250
Two rounds through. Keeping relatively tight intervals, maintaining pace, of roughly: 15 seconds, regardless of length of swims with a one or two minute break between rounds.
The reason I like this set is each round equals 1750, twice through its 3500. For whatever reason, this set psychologically seems to swim fast and it feels like a lot of yards in a short time.
