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Ten thousand yards! You heard that right. That is how munch we swam in college on days where we had two sessions. We did 7000 in the AM and 3000 in the PM. For what you may ask? All for a 1 minute or 2 minute race and our distance guys had a 14 minute race. Incredible isn’t it. Well that is what it takes to be a strong swimmer. The great thing about swimming is that you can recover very fast from an effort. You hardly ever hear of an injury. All you get is chlorinated hair. For a while I looked like I was blonde.
If you come from a non swimming background you may think of this as insane. I guess the same way I look at people that run 100 miles a week. The difference is that 100 miles or even 60 miles or running have so much wear an tear involved that if you do not have the body type and proper bio mechanics you will for sure get hurt. In swimming there are some mechanics involved for sure but the wear and tear is minimal. The biggest hurdle in swimming is your mind set. It is hard to look at a black line for lap after lap.
Many of our athletes think we are kidding when we give then a set that is longer than their race distance. I guess many people train just to finish the swim. That is a big mistake. You do not want to train like that. This is a triathlon and when you get out of the water you need to be ready to go and not have to spend time recovering from the swim. There are so many guys that I have met over the years that will beat me in a run race or in a bike race. But in a triathlon I can out split them in both. Why? Because when they get out of the water they are so tired they can not perform.
The other common misunderstanding I hear is from a guy that swam a lot under our program yet their swim split did not get any better. More swimming can help you go faster, but what will really make you go faster is your mechanics and efficiency. The reason for more swimming as I mentioned before is to make sure the swim does not affect your race whatsoever. So your swim may not be that much faster but your bike and run will be as a result of proper swim volume.
If you read my last post you knew I had a big swim with Jan who is the pro I am coaching and is visiting Boulder on his way to Kona. I went down to Boulder and we did a big 6000 yard set. The warm up was 500 swim, 300 kick, 200 pull. Then we did 9x50, one easy, one build, one fast then a 10th 50 all easy. The main set was 500 pull, 500 swim, 2x400 pull, 3x300 swim, 4x200 pull, 5x100 swim. The rest for the entire set was at least 15 seconds but never more than 30 seconds on any of the longer swims. The 200 we did on 2:50 send-off and the 100’s on 1:25 send-off. Then a warm down set of 5x100, one easy, one catch-up, one right arm/left arm, one finger drag and the last one easy. Jan and I were very evenly matched so we were never more than a few yards apart the entire set. He seems to like the pulls and pushed a bit there where I like the swims and I pushed those.
Jan used his watch to get all splits per hundred. So he says we went faster than 1:20 for all of our 100 splits including those in the 500 swims. On the 200 pulls we were coming in 2:20 and I went under 1:10 on the very last 100 of the big set. Solid swim for me and Jan was happy with the steady pace the entire workout.
Saturday I did a 6 hour ride and I really felt like crap for the first 4 hours. I took a long break at a Safeway. (I ate the entire store.) Ok, it seemed like I did. The break helped and I managed to finish a bit better and do 40 minutes of running to finish my brick. My HR monitor got clogged with water during the long swim so I did not have it for the ride. I guess I did not need it to tell me that I was feeling like crap. I still would have liked to know.
I am now in Winter Park and I am waiting for a break from the kids to get my long run in. I think I will do this one on pavement for at least half of it. I generally run trails but there are no trails in Kona. Just a big long Highway called the Queen K.