I have a question for marathon swimmers...
I've been prepping for a 10k swim that I'll be doing this coming Saturday. I live in coastal southern New England. I really began training in late Feb or Early March by doing longer pool swims. Once the open waters warmed up enough for wetsuits, I moved outside in late May/early June. I completed a full 10k+ with my kayaker today and practiced feeding/drinking him. I feel ready. In the future, I'd like to maintain fitness for doing swims of this long, and longer. But my question is...how do you maintain fitness for doing swims of this distance through winter? I just don't know if I can handle six months of long pool swims.
Dan
I've done 17 marathon swims. I guess everybody is different. My winter volume is not that high (3-4k per day with a 7k or so once per week--not this year). When I get within a few months, I'll try to get out for a 5 miler with a kayaker once per week. As far as cold acclimation goes, I find it impossible living in Arizona. For the English Channel, I got 20 lbs of ice and threw it in the tub (I got up to about 2 hours) but didn't find it helped much. I find for both distance and cold, I just suck it up on race day which is probably not that great of a strategy.
I've done 17 marathon swims. I guess everybody is different. My winter volume is not that high (3-4k per day with a 7k or so once per week--not this year). When I get within a few months, I'll try to get out for a 5 miler with a kayaker once per week. As far as cold acclimation goes, I find it impossible living in Arizona. For the English Channel, I got 20 lbs of ice and threw it in the tub (I got up to about 2 hours) but didn't find it helped much. I find for both distance and cold, I just suck it up on race day which is probably not that great of a strategy.
