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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [way2sloow] [ In reply to ]
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Not quite adult onset swimmer but was not fast when younger. I swam 2 years on the high school team (was really chasing girls ;) ). My best 200 SCY was 2:27 so yeah, slow.. Did not swim again until I was 42, so 24 years of couch potatoness.

Best IM swim was IMLOU in 2016, 59:24, age 50
Best HIM swim was IMKS 70.3 in 2014, 29:53, age 48
Beat 1500m swim was USAT Natls in 2014, 22:24, age 48

All wetsuit swims
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [way2sloow] [ In reply to ]
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This thread is either going to make me give up entirely and take up golf, or it is completely motivating me. I can’t decide?

I’m 47 and really started swimming this year.

My 100yrd is right at 2 minutes including a quick breather at the other end of the 50m pool. I can’t flip turn or do any fancy turns. I still need a quick 5-10 second breather at each end. The pool buoy is my friend.

Obviously I have only done sprints but plan on at least one Oly and maybe a 70.3 next year if I get this swim thing down.

I swim 4 times a week on my lunch break. I average about 15-20 minutes per session and between 600 and 900 yards.

Am I ever going to get there?
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [tri4balance] [ In reply to ]
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My kick otherwise is nearly non-propulsive.
I recall doing kick sets at the pool, and it would take me minutes to cover 25m.

Me too. It takes me just under 2 minutes to kick 25 yards with a kickboard. Hasn't changed in years. Can't loosen my ankles any regardless of what and how I try. On a good day, I'm barely under 1:40 for 100 yards. A little faster than 30 years ago but not what many coaches/experts preach/state what will happen in the future. Not anyone can become a fast(er) swimmer. Proven over and over again, year after year.
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [Mabes72] [ In reply to ]
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You know how I can tell that you really are new to swimming;

My 100yrd is right at 2 minutes including a quick breather at the other end of the 50m pool.

You are swimming yards in a 50 meter pool!!! (-;


Just keep at it, you are at a point of a lot of little gains, and all the time..
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [way2sloow] [ In reply to ]
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When did you start?


Aside from basic swimming lessons as a young kid to ensure I didn't drown when visiting grandma, I started swimming at 14 with my highschool team. This is probably still younger than most adult onset swimmers, but a lot older than truly competitive club kids.


How fast have you become? (please list whether 100 times are SCY, SCM or LC)


100 SCM in 56.16
200m SCM in 2:07
1500m SCM in dragsuit at 18:40 (at a meet where I did 100-200-1500 fr + 100 back races over a few hours)
70.3 varies depending on the course, lead pack, and if I want to push it - 23:00 - 24:00 when fit
Ironman was around 53 non-wetsuit


I haven't really become any faster since highschool, it is just easy to maintain fitness on very little volume (<7,000m per week). Most of my sets are off 1:30 LCM base because its easier to remember send-offs. I rarely swim very hard, mostly just steady between 1:15 - 1:25 per 100 LCM. I basically never see sub 1:10 LCM pace in training.


How long did it take you to get where you are now?


It took about 3 years of swimming 7 months straight each year (swam Oct - March) and having it as a sole focus essentially. Think 8 workouts per week M-F, weekends off (only swam on school days). A little jogging perhaps outside of that. This is probably the biggest key to really making big gains and having them set in for life. After that, the gains were very marginal... mostly just open water strength and dialling in pacing for the long tri swims (relative to pool races).


What age (range) does one become classified as an AOS? In other words, hitting the pool at 28y/o did I start too late?


No idea. I think anyone can pick up swimming to a fairly reasonable degree (i.e: sub 60 ironman swim at least) if they go all-in at any age.. most just aren't willing to put in the focused hours.
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [Josh S] [ In reply to ]
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Was a non swimmer six years ago at the age of 45 and started teaching myself in order to enter a local sprint. I completed that six months later with a 10.05 400m swim. Slow, but FC all the way!
Six years later, still slow but have completed four Iron distance races with swims in this order...1.58, 1.32, 1.25 and 1.16 this year which is finally a time I’m not too unhappy with.
Plenty more improvement in me hopefully.
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [way2sloow] [ In reply to ]
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Year of birth 1961.
Started swimming in 2006.
So I'm 58 now if I calculate well.

in a swimsuit 2000m 40 minutes in a 50m pool.
With pullbuoy or wetsuit a couple of minutes faster.


I belong to those who'll never learn swimming.
Overrun all of the fast swimmers though later in the race :-)

To all the lousy swimmers: KQ is possible anyway.
Had 1:32 two years ago in Kona. Am convinced I should be able to do low 1:2x though. Will go for that in a couple of weeks.
Last edited by: longtrousers: Sep 17, 19 0:18
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]
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When did you start?

September 2016 1-2 times per week because I wanted to do an olympic distance tri in June 2017. Only knew basic breast stroke from when I was little, no freestyle. I'm 27 now.

How fast have you become? (please list whether 100 times are SCY, SCM or LC)

All with open turns:

25m SC: 15"
50m SC: 34"
100m SC: 1'16" (And I believe 1'12" with fins/zoomers)
200m SC: 2'53"
400m SC: 6'16" however this was my split in a tri with 500m pool swim, might be able to go a bit quicker


I think right now I might be able to do better on the 200m and 400m but haven't tried the last few months. There's quite a big drop off IMO between the shorter distances (25-50-100) and the 200-400 speeds.

How long did it take you to get where you are now?

3 years, swimming 1-2 times a week the first year. Swimming 2-3 times a week last 2 years.

Last edited by: Tri_Joeri: Sep 17, 19 2:35
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [way2sloow] [ In reply to ]
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Started ~2 years ago as an AOS (41 now), however did learn the very basics 10+ years ago.
2 years ago I joined a Masters program here where I try 3 swims a week (we have 10 time-slots during the week mostly LCM sometimes SCM)
In the pool I can hold 20x100LCM @1.45 (1.37) however I have real difficulty to ever swim under 1.30/100 LCM without drafting.

last weekend, did my first half in 31.51 (~2000m I think); with wetsuit however no real draft and was relaxed throughout.
Typically in my 1/4 races with wetsuit I seem to avg. around 1.30/100; and although this still puts me in top 10% after the swim, this really hurts my race-results as there are often several guys that seem to swim 3+ mins faster in typical 1000m swims which is almost impossible to overcome on the bike.
So for next winter I need to start working on reducing this deficit to 1.30 mins or less ...
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [Josh S] [ In reply to ]
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Josh S wrote:
No idea. I think anyone can pick up swimming to a fairly reasonable degree (i.e: sub 60 ironman swim at least) if they go all-in at any age.. most just aren't willing to put in the focused hours.


I do not agree. Read e.g. post #106 of this:
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ng_gains_P6112426-5/
Last edited by: longtrousers: Sep 17, 19 1:21
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [Tri_Joeri] [ In reply to ]
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Started at age 36 now 39 so 4 years of working my butt off in the swimming pool, watched (i think) 90% of all YT swim howto videos ... :-)

I'm averaging now around 1'50-1'55"/100SCM as cruising speed and can push out around 1'30"/100scm hard efforts.
HIM: 35', IM: 1u20' .

I swim 3-4 times a week ( tri team + group/private swim lessons next to that.)

It's frustrating because I actually like swimming. My osteo/physical therapist says i'm in his top 3 of people with the worst shoulder/torso mobility he's ever seen. Bummer. I love the process, but it takes too long :-)

As soon as I realised that, i've put my kids in a local swim squad. When they learned the skill, they can drop out. Just don't want them to end up like their old man and struggle when the tri ambition kicks in later in life.
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [way2sloow] [ In reply to ]
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Started swimming in 2013, had surfed a lot of my life before then but never gotten in a pool or "swam." my half are all 29-31min now IM are 1:01-1:02. Think back in 2013-2014 they where 31-33 and first half was like 1:04. I cant wait to retire from triathlon and stop swimming.

2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [monty] [ In reply to ]
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monty wrote:
You know how I can tell that you really are new to swimming;

My 100yrd is right at 2 minutes including a quick breather at the other end of the 50m pool.

You are swimming yards in a 50 meter pool!!! (-;


Just keep at it, you are at a point of a lot of little gains, and all the time..


I know right. I don't even know what I'm talking about yet :)
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [TrierinKC] [ In reply to ]
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My first open water HIM swim was 48:07...

so how do I get faster?

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [Kevin in MD] [ In reply to ]
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Kevin in MD wrote:
So, to the data, all this is for short course yards, in pool time trials, not meet times. 38 youth onset swimmers, 55 adult onset swimmers. The analysis was done on the average time for each athlete, some of these athletes have done a dozen time trials, others only one, but I figured this would represent the spread between athletes the best.

Hopefully this formats OK

AOS averages (55 athletes)
100 time: 1:32
500 time: 8:55
Critical Pace: 1:53
Strokes / 25: 22

YOS averages (38 athletes)
100 time: 1:12
500 time: 7:12
Critical Pace: 1:30
Strokes / 25: 18

If you are playing along at home, your average adult onset swimmer is:
20 seconds slower in a 100
1:43 slower in a 500
23 seconds / 100 slower in sustainable pace
takes 4 more strokes to cross the pool.

As interesting comparisons, if you extend the critical pace out to 1650, you get that an adult onset swimmer would be on average 6 minutes and 20 seconds slower than a youth onsets swimmer.

Another interesting little tidbit, for the 500, about 1/3rd of the YOS average under 7:00 for the 500 swim - only 3 of the 55 AOS swimmers I have data on have averaged under 7:00.

Wo don't get discouraged, if all you did was read on slowtwitch, you'd read account from Adult Onset Swimmers who have gone on to be quite good swimmers, but the reality is that it is quite rare. Not unheard of, but quite rare.


Interesting numbers there (I know it's a 2 year old post). I guess my 1 year of youth swimming when I was 12 technically counts as YOS, as I still do a bit of the s-style stroke that was taught to me at that time. Got in to triathlon at a race age of 31, so now been swimming for 10 years and I'm right at the avg times there for YOS, even with # of strokes/length, except I can't do a 1:12 off the wall, closer to 1:20ish using a 2-beat kick.

Never really swam much though, when I first got back in to swimming, I was around 2:00/100 at 6k/week and improved down to 1:40ish after 2 years, then got down around 1:30ish at year 3 at around 7-7.5k/week and since then volume has been inconsistent, sometimes taking winters almost completely off.

Interesting to see the stroke rate match up though, since the swim smooth emails keep convincing me I need to be swimming at 80spm, meanwhile I'm at ~60 at CSS. I actually had to slow down my stroke rate this past year and got faster. Just did savageman trying to swim at an ez pace, did just under 32 at about 50-52 spm.

How much slower to experienced swimmers stroke when doing super easy work? Or just not even worth it to think about it?
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]
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TheStroBro wrote:
My first open water HIM swim was 48:07...

so how do I get faster?

Tons of advice on this forum from folks who coach for which I am not.

What I did:

At least 3 swims a week, approx. 3,000 SCY per session
Started swimming with masters group in 2011
Got video analysis of stroke to find flaws
Read Shelia T's book Swim Speed Secrets (tubing drills are excellent dry land work)

What I do today:
Don't overthink swim workouts, go to pool, do a 300 warmup swim, do some 1-arm drills (2x100 or 4x50) and 1x300 or so of pull w/paddles.
I do kick sets with masters but rarely on my own, I suck at kicking, I'm all pull but that's why I do 1-arm drills as it helps with body position.

Main set is simple. Knock out about 2,000 yards comprised of 100's, 75's and 50's. I rarely swim more than 100 yards at a time. Sometimes I'll just knock out 12 or 16 100's then do the balance of the 2,000 with 50's or 75's. I'll usually take 20 to 30 second rest intervals.

Then I'll finish up with a 200 yard cool down.

If you have major flaws in your stroke fix that first. With minor flaws, which I still have, just do volume and you will see times go down. But it needs to be short high intensity volume. None of this long 300, 500 or 1000 yard stuff at a "steady" pace. Get that volume/intensity stuff up, then you'll see swim times go down.

This Filliol character has some really good advice.

http://joelfilliol.blogspot.com/...this-blog-is-is.html
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [Bioteknik] [ In reply to ]
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Bioteknik wrote:
Kevin in MD wrote:


Interesting to see the stroke rate match up though, since the swim smooth emails keep convincing me I need to be swimming at 80spm, meanwhile I'm at ~60 at CSS. I actually had to slow down my stroke rate this past year and got faster. Just did savageman trying to swim at an ez pace, did just under 32 at about 50-52 spm.

How much slower to experienced swimmers stroke when doing super easy work? Or just not even worth it to think about it?

This is what I doubt too. My tri club is a swim smooth squad and the squad coach always tell me to raise my stroke rate. Before I joined the squad I was probably swimming at 55 spm, but now I am at about 62. My CSS time dropped a lot but it doesn't translate into my race time, where I see no improvement at all.

I'm considering if I should change club if I still can't see improvement by November when the temperature is no longer an issue.
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [way2sloow] [ In reply to ]
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Short answer: Yes, it just takes time and dedication.

I had someone ask me how many hours in a pool a kid growing up swimming had once they got to high school, and compare that to my own experience. Learning later in life has no disadvantage, it just takes years of 2-4 pool sessions a week to get better.

I found that my swimming got better in fits and starts. My cardio would finally catch up, or I could breathe on both sides comfortably, etc. Also I would say, if you have the budget, getting a swimming coach would have some of the largest dividends because of the three sports swimming is the least intuitive. I worked with a coach 2x a week for 2-3 months and I dropped 10-15 seconds off my 100 time.

No swimming formal background. 1:40/100m on my 70.3 (I'm a long course guy). Training wise 1:30 is a comfortable push, and all out I did a 200 in 2:30.

Hope that helps!
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Re: Adult Onset Swimmers: How fast are you? [TRISandy] [ In reply to ]
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Consistent improvement is the name of the game. I feel like this is related to the coaching thread on "it just takes time.' If you're improving at all, you're doing it right.

I was the type who would literally drown if i fell out of a boat at 21 years old.

First olympic in 2008 - 53 min swim
first 70.3 2009 - 43 mins
2010 70.3 - 34
2012 olympic - 22
2013 olympic 21
2014 70.3 29
2018 70.3 (took a 2 year hiatus from tri) - 27 high
2019 - 27 for 70.3, 58 for kona
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