What do YOU need to do to have a major swimming breakthrough?"

congrats on your goal and posting here looks like you're well on your way if you want to swim the channel it's good to have some insulation Lynne (who I train with sometimes) swam the channel and catalina she did a lot of cold water swimming to prepare here's her blog you might find some useful info there did you have a particular question? I would love to have a breakthrough! I didn't swim in college and took a long break from swimming. I've been back swimming very consistently for a little over a year. Mostly I have been training for long open water swims and just signed up to swim the English channel in July 2010. How many times a week are you training? 5-6. Will start adding doubles soon to start training for the channel. Will build up to 9 practices a week. How far do you go in each practice? 3-5,000. In the months before a long OW races, I try to do one 10-14,000 practice per week. How hard and fast do you go? I like to swim at a high intensity. I can make 10-20 hundreds on 1:15. We usually swim most of practice at a base interval of 1:20 and I'll hold about a 1:12 pace. I really would like to be able to comfortably swim on a 1:10 interval by next year. Do you have any training partners who are as good or better than you? yes usually Are you splitting your race correctly? usually, though I died during the last hour of my last 12.5 mi race. Didn't have quite enough endurance. did you taper? yeah did you shave? yup are you wearing a fast skin body suit in races? no, but I just got the blue seventy point zero3 how good was the pool you swam in? NA how psyched were you before and during your race? pretty psyhed are you making any technique mistakes you could improve? I'm trying to learn the I-pull to increase my turnover. I am about to read Total Immersion and I hope that will be helpful. Also I am trying to work on my kick. I don't kick - at all, not even a 2 beat kick. That makes me start to sink at the end of long races. I run 20 mi/week and have big strong legs, but I don't use them. how close are you to your ideal body weight? I think I'm about 40 lb over my idea weight. I love love love carbs and sweets. ::sigh:: I'm gonna start the South Beach diet next week how strong are you? I don't lift but I am pretty strong. I used to use the Vasa trainer and might start doing that again. I also think I could benefit from some abs/core work. Thanks for the advice!

congrats on your goal and posting here looks like you're well on your way if you want to swim the channel it's good to have some insulation Lynne (who I train with sometimes) swam the channel and catalina she did a lot of cold water swimming to prepare here's her blog you might find some useful info there did you have a particular question? I would love to have a breakthrough! I didn't swim in college and took a long break from swimming. I've been back swimming very consistently for a little over a year. Mostly I have been training for long open water swims and just signed up to swim the English channel in July 2010. How many times a week are you training? 5-6. Will start adding doubles soon to start training for the channel. Will build up to 9 practices a week. How far do you go in each practice? 3-5,000. In the months before a long OW races, I try to do one 10-14,000 practice per week. How hard and fast do you go? I like to swim at a high intensity. I can make 10-20 hundreds on 1:15. We usually swim most of practice at a base interval of 1:20 and I'll hold about a 1:12 pace. I really would like to be able to comfortably swim on a 1:10 interval by next year. Do you have any training partners who are as good or better than you? yes usually Are you splitting your race correctly? usually, though I died during the last hour of my last 12.5 mi race. Didn't have quite enough endurance. did you taper? yeah did you shave? yup are you wearing a fast skin body suit in races? no, but I just got the blue seventy point zero3 how good was the pool you swam in? NA how psyched were you before and during your race? pretty psyhed are you making any technique mistakes you could improve? I'm trying to learn the I-pull to increase my turnover. I am about to read Total Immersion and I hope that will be helpful. Also I am trying to work on my kick. I don't kick - at all, not even a 2 beat kick. That makes me start to sink at the end of long races. I run 20 mi/week and have big strong legs, but I don't use them. how close are you to your ideal body weight? I think I'm about 40 lb over my idea weight. I love love love carbs and sweets. ::sigh:: I'm gonna start the South Beach diet next week how strong are you? I don't lift but I am pretty strong. I used to use the Vasa trainer and might start doing that again. I also think I could benefit from some abs/core work. Thanks for the advice!