Thebigturtle wrote:
Let me explain why swimming 6 to 8k a week is a very bad idea if you want to perform at a high level in a triathlon. One summer between my first and second year of medical school all I did was train, race and about 10 hours of lab work. I was consistently training 20k a week of swimming, 200 miles of biking, and 35-40 minutes of biking. I laid down some great results, including a 20 minute, 56min 40k, 34 min 10k results. After med school started up again, I became very busy and had no time to keep up my volume of training, but I had qualified for an invite race with free hotel etc so I decided to go anyway. My swimming consisted of about 3-6k for 6 or 7 weeks before the race, I ended up still swimming a 20 minute 1500, but I was so gassed from the effort that I biked 59 and ran 37 minutes, which was way below my ability at the time. You want to come out of the swim feeling "pretty" good, which requires a lot of volume for anyone but an ex elite swimmer who has millions of yards under their belt. You will never be able to bike or run to your ability without having great swim endurance.Could it simply be that you simply were in 21 min shape and by pushing to 20 min you went into the red zone too much hence compromised the rest of the day? And what was your bike and running mileage compared to your PB days? It does seem to me as if you were fit but not PB fit. Work schedule is for many of us a bit more restrictive for training than school schedule.
I am not saying that swimming 20 k per week is a bad idea to perform at your best. But when someone like lightheir says that they swim 20 k per week and they are nowhere near a 20 min 1,500 m then it seems to me as if there is a quality issue somewhere.