I wonder what mike mcbroom could do that 5000 in. He did a 17:49 2000y late last year..

Vendt is about 2.5 years older than I am - so I figure it was probably '97/'98 time frame and since the pool was setup SCY it was likely in the fall, probably Oct/Nov. I don't know if he actually fell asleep in the gutter - did spend some time there though.

The team we were on at the time was called Ocean State Squids (OSS) - we had a reputation for difficult training. I think Josh picked up a lot of his training methodology from his previous experiences as a swimmer at the Peddie School in NJ - I believe the coach's name was Chris Martin. So when I say I can't remember all the details, a lot of it has to do with the fact that the rest of us were getting are butts kicked too. Do I know he did the set, yes, I remember that. Can I say with absolutely certainly all the details, nope, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were accurate.

So fall of 1997 or '98, thanks. I'm not at all one of the "doubters" as I've heard and read about it so many times. As a female friend of mine who swam for the U. of Tenn in that same late 90s era used to say, "I don't care what anyone says, NO ONE trains any harder than swimmers". And, I think that includes tri people although some would call it even between the two:)

There was a post about who you would like to see race an IM, I think I mentioned Vendt. There is no question he would be an elite pro within a short amount of time.

Drop the elite guys? Of course. To give you an idea: at a ow race a year and a half ago Vendt beat Sara McClary by 1:30 in a one mile swim. McClarty is typically within 30 seconds - sometimes closer - of the best male splits in Olympic distance races. If the race stretched to 2.4 miles the gap would be pretty big. My guess is that he would beat Potts by 3:30 on a 2.4 mile swim right now.

Sidenote: hardest set I've ever seen completed:
30X200 fly SCY on 2:30. By Ray Carey in the early ninties. This obviously doesn't compare to Vendt's set, but to me it's still impressive. I was training with my high school team in the Harvard pool while the Bernal's Gators elites were training in another set of lanes. Everyone else did the set freestyle, Carey did it fly without making it seem like anything special. I think he was about 18 or 19 at the time.

http://deadspin.com/...-michael-phelps-does

And Carey was mainly known as a backstroker:) Also, did you not mean in the early 80s, rather than 90s???

Rick Carey was a world record holding backstroker in the early to mid 80's. Ray Carey was a flyer and I think swam the 200 fly at the 96' Olympics.

if you look at the link you posted, it lists Erik's 30 x 1000 quite a bit differently than described here.

10 @ 10:45 10@ 10:30, 10@ 10:15

I still think there's more to the Larsen Jensen one. He could have done 18 min 1500s in his sleep...

On top of that, I've witnessed the u of Iowa boys crank out a set of 100x100 on 1:00. There were a number of them who made it, and none were nearly as good as vendt.

And, in that same link you posted, there's phelps 5000 in 46:34. Which works out to 5 9:20 's in a row, with room to spare.

The toughest workout I ever heard of was 20 x 1,000 IM long course, not breaking stroke once. Not sure of the times, but it is impressive regardless.
Jerry Frentsos was a 1988 Olympic alternate in the 400 IM. 1987 his best time for the 400 IM was 4:26; He calculated that he needed to drop 6 seconds to qualify for the Olympics. He dropped 6 seconds and swam a 4:20 at trials. But when he touched the wall and looked up, he discovered that he was 3rd. He missed going to the Olympics by .18 seconds and became an alternate.
It took him 3 tries to finally complete that 20 x 1,000s IM workout and dropping 6 seconds in 1 year at that level is pretty much unheard of.

Only because Potts doesn't have much experience swimming on feet ;) At IM Hawaii 2009 Flanagan/Potts went 47:42/47:45 swimming next to each other...neither wanted to drop back to take feet. Hell, they could have gone much faster taking turns pulling...

Yeah, the description here is supposedly the "truth" though, and it's SUBSTANTIALLY harder than what's written there. The one linked never has one faster than 10:15. But according the OP, there were some on 9:30. That's a massive difference:
"I think 10:00 intervals became the story because it averaged out to faster than 10:00 per 1000." But the link has it at 10:30 average, with NONE faster than 10:00. Yet another reason to be skeptical.

I think it is almost certainly believable that he did 30x1000. I just easily see the "make" time being conflated with the send off time. "He did one *IN* 9:30" becomes "He did one *ON* 9:30." Just another classic game of telephone. In, on... What's the difference?

I also realize that SCY is ALWAYS faster than LCM. The point I was trying to make is that for a 30k workout, the difference is not substantial enough to undermine the validity of Monty's extrapolation to compare it to Jensen's set.

I think Phelps's 5000 shows just how implausible this is:
"We started at 1 on 11:00, 1 on 10:00, 1 on 9:50, 1 on 9:40, 1 on 9:30
Then 1 on 10:15 and 3 on 9:45, 1 on 9:30
Then 5 on 10:00 and so on "

Yes, Phelps did 5x9:20s in a row. But he did *FIVE* of them. He didn't 30 of them. I mean, do we really think that Phelps could have just hammered out another 5 or even 10 just because he was getting a minute of rest (or less) between?

Yeah, the description here is supposedly the "truth" though, and it's SUBSTANTIALLY harder than what's written there. The one linked never has one faster than 10:15. But according the OP, there were some on 9:30. That's a massive difference:
"I think 10:00 intervals became the story because it averaged out to faster than 10:00 per 1000." But the link has it at 10:30 average, with NONE faster than 10:00. Yet another reason to be skeptical.

I think it is almost certainly believable that he did 30x1000. I just easily see the "make" time being conflated with the send off time. "He did one *IN* 9:30" becomes "He did one *ON* 9:30." Just another classic game of telephone. In, on... What's the difference?

I also realize that SCY is ALWAYS faster than LCM. The point I was trying to make is that for a 30k workout, the difference is not substantial enough to undermine the validity of Monty's extrapolation to compare it to Jensen's set.

I think Phelp's 5000 shows just how implausible this is:
"We started at 1 on 11:00, 1 on 10:00, 1 on 9:50, 1 on 9:40, 1 on 9:30
Then 1 on 10:15 and 3 on 9:45, 1 on 9:30
Then 5 on 10:00 and so on "

Yes, Phelps did 5x9:20s in a row. But he did *FIVE* of them. He didn't 30 of them. I mean, do we really think that Phelps could have just hammered out another 5 or even 10 just because he was getting a minute of rest (or less) between?

Yeah, I get all that. I'm just not willing to say that the OP's version is definitely bullshit, because I've seen guys do some amazingly insane things over the years.