I know I'm not the only one who took up open water swimming this year, due to pools being closed. So a weird thing happened to me. I don't prefer it, but I see a lot of value in it. Getting in and maintaining a pace for over 3000 yards without stopping I think will help with stamina. Also since I can't make regular Masters practice, I'm finding a nice social group. So much so that I'm now thinking about doing a 10K in September.
Alright, so here is what I have been able to do:
Once per week, swim with group, upriver for about 30 minutes, then downriver. Current has gone from obscene to managable. I'm generally with the "lead" group, or the "long distance" group, however you want to describe those who go farther. Right now, we've been hitting 1600 yards upstream, and then returning. About 30 minutes up, 22 minutes back. In addition, I go do point to point swims, roughly 500 yards apart, once, maybe twice per week. Total distance average 2000 yards. A second distance swim per week is not coming into play, Saturday night it was 3500 yards.
In addition, I've been running 1-2x per week. Up to 4.5 miles on flat land, 3.5 on courses that require hard climbs. Try to get in a 13 mile single track mountain bike ride once per week, but that is weather dependent.
Anyway, I still like the regular workouts, and I still follow the ones that Swimdogs (how do you "tag" people so they see they are mentioned - I'd like his input) used to post a few years ago (okay......well I did until early March). I may be able to gain access to a pool in the next couple of weeks.
So....anyone else trying to mix both open water and regular workouts? If so, how do you balance? I'd like to displace my running
Side note....there is a 100M pool I will be able to swim in occasionally. So, if I'm tracking my workouts, is that a "pool" swim, or an "open water" swim :) Really only half kidding.......
Again, for thsoe who like both, how do you balance the two? Should I be punting on conventional workouts for now and try to focus on open water workouts to prepare for the 10K?
Sorry, wasn't really clear in my question! So assuming I get access to a pool soon, the question (okay, group of them) is how much time do I spend doing open water versus regular workouts? Or should I just do normal workouts in the pool, and pull back to doing the 1-2 group open water swims per week?This is my first time ever training in open water; like many others said, before I just trained in a pool and would then race open water. Two thoughts on this:
From my understanding, most of the elite/Olympic level 10K OW swimmers do the vast, vast majority of their training in the pool. Part of that might just be access to pools (historically) being easier and safer than OW venues, but I think the main reason is that pacing is so important to them. So, if your aim is to RACE open water, take a tip from the pros and primarily train in the pool.
As for me moving forward, I moved to Canada about 18 months ago and discovered, last summer, three interesting things about the masters scene at least here in Ontario:
Pretty much no pool meets from June through August, but gobs of open water events all around this province and neighboring Quebec
My small (~15 person) masters team actually shuts down (even in pre-COVID times) from late June through mid-September as everyone spends time outside. We don't have any outdoor pools in our community, but are blessed with lots of lakes ... and many of the swimmers on my team are primarily triathletes when it comes to competition.
So, this year and in the future, I plan to divert to primarily lake swimming in the summer time, going to pools only when ligthning/timing or other reasons prohibit me getting in a lake.
...Side note....there is a 100M pool I will be able to swim in occasionally. So, if I'm tracking my workouts, is that a "pool" swim, or an "open water" swim :) Really only half kidding...I've swum in Kitsilano Pool in Vancouver which is 137 meters long. They have a couple of "lanes" but no ropes and lots of different speeds of swimmers. While the water is clear like a pool, my swim stroke there and sigthing is like being in open water. I call it open water from a workout style standpoint.
Sorry, wasn't really clear in my question! So assuming I get access to a pool soon, the question (okay, group of them) is how much time do I spend doing open water versus regular workouts? Or should I just do normal workouts in the pool, and pull back to doing the 1-2 group open water swims per week?This is my first time ever training in open water; like many others said, before I just trained in a pool and would then race open water. Two thoughts on this:
From my understanding, most of the elite/Olympic level 10K OW swimmers do the vast, vast majority of their training in the pool. Part of that might just be access to pools (historically) being easier and safer than OW venues, but I think the main reason is that pacing is so important to them. So, if your aim is to RACE open water, take a tip from the pros and primarily train in the pool.
As for me moving forward, I moved to Canada about 18 months ago and discovered, last summer, three interesting things about the masters scene at least here in Ontario:
Pretty much no pool meets from June through August, but gobs of open water events all around this province and neighboring Quebec
My small (~15 person) masters team actually shuts down (even in pre-COVID times) from late June through mid-September as everyone spends time outside. We don't have any outdoor pools in our community, but are blessed with lots of lakes ... and many of the swimmers on my team are primarily triathletes when it comes to competition.
So, this year and in the future, I plan to divert to primarily lake swimming in the summer time, going to pools only when ligthning/timing or other reasons prohibit me getting in a lake.
...Side note....there is a 100M pool I will be able to swim in occasionally. So, if I'm tracking my workouts, is that a "pool" swim, or an "open water" swim :) Really only half kidding...I've swum in Kitsilano Pool in Vancouver which is 137 meters long. They have a couple of "lanes" but no ropes and lots of different speeds of swimmers. While the water is clear like a pool, my swim stroke there and sigthing is like being in open water. I call it open water from a workout style standpoint.
