Request for LONG distance training (?)

I am new to posting; so bear with me. My training for the last two years has been to prepare for a 2.5 ocean swim. For background I swam competively through college and masters till 40 retiring due to shoulder injuries; after 8 years of running and two knee operations the doctor suggested easy distance swimming; we swim 5 days a week each day a different workout but the same workout each week all on the clock; each workout has a 500 yd warmup; mondays is a straight 1 hour swim; tuesday is 2x 1,750 swim with 30 seconds rest; wednesdy is 3x 1000 starting on the nearest 30; thursday is 7x 500 with 15 seonds rest and friday is 35x 100 on 1:30, the rest interval is anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds; after two years some of th 100s are now done on 1:25 with the goal to drop them all to that interval; in the beginning we could only due 5 without a break. Over the two years our times have steadily dropped as we got in better shape. It really helps to have a swimming buddy; we have no coach but as I said we both swam competively in college.

Peter Tanham has a good book out ostensibly on swimming the rottnest channel. It isn't much of a book, a lot of filler material. However ti has a 10 week progression of workouts that he used to get ready for the swim. I use them often. Marcia cleveland has a few main sets on her website. They would be found here (www.doversolo.com/opnwtrtrng.htm) she has some open water and pool workouts on that page.

Just thought I could add a little knowledge/experience to the subject of distance training, particularly for open water events (say 5K, 10K's or more.) I've done my share and all of which I have trained for in a pool (mostly short course but long course is better!) I am coached by a very successful Open Water distance swimmer who has National recognition and many records posted! Of course first off, you have to "go the distance". The trick is to maintain quality as well, i.e intensity. For example if you are training for a 5K swim, one would presume is to do some 5K swims (5,000 meters) in the pool. Well, that might be ok to do periodically but its hard to keep the intensity. Typically, going this distance in a pool, swimmers tend to go to easy and do not maintain a steady pace. I (and my coach) agree and have demonstrated results that it would be better to go 50 X100's holding a goal pace with limited rest (about 10-15 sec.) Another way to look at distance training is to do a typical interval workout but really limit the rest. Your body (cardio. system) needs to be accustomed to what it will experience on race day where your heart rate will be elevated for 1 or 3+ hours at a time (depending on the distance.) So, cut your intervals down to limit the rest period. I just got done training for a 10K and what I did was a lot of typical sets/workouts but only gave myself 10 sec. rest between each interval (whether it was a 50 or a 1500) AND, only about 10-15 seconds rest between sets! The goal being to keep your heart rate elevated during the entire workout. You should build up so that at your peak training period (which should last several weeks) you are mixing in workouts with limited rest that last as long as your projected swim time. For example if your projected swim time for the 5K is 1 hr. 30 min., this is how long a lot of your workout should be lasting not letting your HR drop to much!! Don't be afraid to mix in some easy long swims, drills (mostly stroke count) and kicking!! GO FOR IT!

Swim, swim, swim, after you are physically in condition, swim some hundreds and some fiftys. After a good warm up I liked 50m in 37sec x 30 with 15 sec rest, and 100m in 1:18 x 15 with 30 sec rest. Lake swims 1 hr. 2hr. sometimes twice a day. In the 1hr swims I tried to get as close to three miles in the hr. On Saturday never more than 3 hr. swim, rest on Sun. When training in the lake 60 to 65 strokes a min. and every 15 mins I took it up to 75 strokes a min. for 5 min. then back to 60 or 65 strokes. Remember this was in 1964 til I quit racing marathons. George Park www.swimdownhill.com

I found this thread fascinating! My background is from cycling - got to pro ranks then retired at 30. I love swimming and now have the chance to have a go at the masters distance events. I'm taking the cycling way of training to swim faster for distance swimming. For example training for the 10 mile time trial is surely similar to the 1500m swim in time and so therefore effort is similar (between 20-30min effort). Also the 25 mile time trail event is similar to 5k event in time and effort (1hr-1hr20 or so efforts). Both are very tough events as you know. It's just that we cyclists don't train like most swimmers - not in any way like it - the whole approach is different. I've never seen so much emphasis on short sets when the focus surely should be on pace awareness and lactate threshold sets lasting and building: 5-10-15 minute efforts to train lactate buffering and Vo2 3-5 min efforts all built upon/within slow volume work at 75% effort etc..I could go on and on...but I am just so surprised at the way you guys train - I mean, yardage stuff - that was all tried out decades ago - what's happened to quality workouts with the goal of adaptation not overtraining and over duplicating workouts like a.m and p.m workouts - what DOES that do? What's this 'train every day for months and then taper'? Hey - don't workouts loose a hec of a lot of quality doing that over time and does not one get so fatigued that overtraining sets in? wow! Obviously it works for some but not me I'm afraid. Anyway, I am loving my swimming and I will let you know how I get on with my cycling approach to the 1500m (and I may one day a 5k). Cheers