I'm really starting to believe Australia just has a better gene pool.

???? huh?

Vendt is American.

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Well Erik is from Massachusetts, so I'm not really sure what you're getting at there...

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

Please tell me this is yards.

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yeah, it was yards... Well, being from Mass, yaaads.

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My bad. It was late and my instinct is to just assume something crazy like that was done by an Australian.

Now that I think about it, doing that in meters would mean he was almost without a doubt the WR holder in anything 400 and up, considering the record is only about :58/100m pace for the 1500, so being able to hold at least :59/100 for 30k would make holding the same pace for 1500m child's play.

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Well, I wasn't going to come straight out and say that it was a stupid question, but, yeah, it was a stupid question ;-)

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Obviously he did not consider this to be a big deal or he would have had breakfast first.

So, basically he swam 30,000 yds (18.2 mi) in around 4:55-ish on about 500-600 calories. Using a rough equivalence of 1000 yd = 2 mi run, that would be like a 60 mile run on at most 600 cal. Just think how much faster he would have gone with a proper "nutrition plan". "Nutrition" is way over-rated:)

In any case, that is one of the most amazing workouts ever!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I'm just on the edge of calling bullshit on this workout, but it could be possible, and he is one of the best distance swimmers we have ever produced. Doing them on the 10 minutes is a very makable workout for sure for this guy, but once you drill down to the actual set, well it needs some perspective. So during the set it says he did one of his 1000's on the 9;30. So just giving him 1 second per 100, that brings him in at about 9;20. Push that pace out onto a 16;50, and that is about a 15;30, from a push off, in the middle of a monster set, and unshaved and presumable untapered. The number of guys that can even break that time in a workout situation stand alone in the US, well you could probably count them on one hand. So just that one swim is only about 30 or so seconds off what he would do in a big meet, shaved, tapered, and off the blocks( 1650 ), and he did this twice?

So personally it seems unlikely, but not impossible i guess. That part of the swim would have been virtually as hard as he could go, basically race pace for this tired, unshaved, push off. I'm guessing that on many of the other swims it must have been touch and go too, especially the 9;45 base ones to have been able to make those two 9;20+ swims.

And all of this super high level swimming on basically no food too? Something sounds fishy to me..

"Around #17-#19 we realised that Erik hadn't eaten anything (ANYTHING!) before he came in to train. "

Yeah, that part didn't happen. When was the last time you saw a swimmer (particularly a late teens / early 20's male) without food in his hand?

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Coach strikes me as pretty honest - mind you, Yanks are prone to exaggerate on the odd occasion. Someone in the ST world must know or live near Erik. Why not ask the man himself, though he's probably blocked it out as a bad dream.

For Vendt, 4:55 would have been about 85% of his race pace. So this was probably closer to a brisk walk then a run for him. So calorie wise, this was "just" a 5 hour hike, not a 60 mile run ;-)

Actually, it was like a 5 hour trainer ride with no music or video in a room with white walls. The dude is lucky he came out of this with his sanity!

or Vendt, 4:55 would have been about 85% of his race pace. So this was probably closer to a brisk walk then a run for him. So calorie wise, this was "just" a 5 hour hike, not a 60 mile run ;-)

But that is not what he did. Some of the swims in the middle were at 4;40 pace or so. WHat you propose is like saying that a guy ran 30 miles in 3 hours, but ignoring that two of the miles were a 3;55. How probably is that scenario? That is about what they are saying Vendt did in the pool, on no calories no less!

4:55 = 295 min, 295/30 ==> 9:50/1000 yd vs his AR of 8:36, so he was going around 59.0 per 100 yd vs his all-out 1000 pace of 51.6/100. IMO, that's eqv to a brisk running pace, not a brisk walk, but perhaps you are exaggerating.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Well, he may not have had breakfast but no one knows how much pizza he eat the night before . . .

I could see where there would be skeptics. But I tend to believe this. I've watched a lot of swimming and some kids (never me!) just seem to be freaky distance swimmers. While they might never swim much faster than a 50 second stand-alone 100, they can hold 55's all day long and you don't see a huge difference in their pace for a 500, 1,000 or 1650. Eva Fabian (an american open water swimmer who went to Yale) is a great swimmer who I've seen at many races who always struck me as being like this. I think Vendt's best 1000 is in the 8:30's so it wouldn't surprise me if he could back a minute or so off of that and hold that pace for a considerable period of time.

I do doubt he did this having not eaten for 12 hours! But given how legends grow, I'm surprised that by now the story isn't something to the effect that he did it coming off an all-night bender.

What I find interesting about Vendt (which actually kind of cuts against my premise) is that he got pretty competitive in the 200 toward the end of his career. In any event, it's a cool story that certainly has been around for a while.

While they might never swim much faster than a 50 second stand-alone 100, they can hold 55's all day long and you don't see a huge difference in their pace for a 500, 1,000 or 1650.//

I agree, but this is a 30,000!! His best all out 1000 shaved, tapered, from a dive, and with the cheater suit was about 8;37. Someone mentioned that it would have been a brisk walk for him, I contend that it may have been the greatest workout of his life, if he in fact did do it as it was layer out here. That is about 19x 1650's, with two of them at about 15;30, and several more between there and 16 minutes. I too have seen some freaky distance guys, who can just hold this monster pace for a very long time. I guess he could have recovered enough on the slower ones, but in workout a 15;20+ would have to be all out i would imagine, and twice!

He was a pretty handy swimmer though - a couple of Oly medals puts him up there and he also did have a reputation for being a very hard nosed trainer. Put those two together. How many out there have swum with or watched train at their local pool swimmers of this calibre? (Not counting watching warm up/downs at nationals, worlds etc).

This is well documented and there were lots of witnesses. Vendt's appetite for training remains legendary. I'm from Massachusetts and know peiople who trained with him. The guy was borderline masochistic.

Also, note that Larsen Jensen completed 17 X 1,500 LCM on 20:00. He was shooting for 20, didn't get there. To me, that's equally insane.

Long time lurker, first time poster - wanted to add some credibility to the story.

I was on the team at the time Erik did this. We used to train out of Brown University and as was typical, our Saturday mornings were the real long practices of the week. I know Josh mentioned we were at 3.5 hours on Saturdays, but I think we were at 5 hours by then (typically 9am to 2pm).

Anyway, we showed up for our normal practice time and Erik was already in the water doing the set - Lane 1 if I remember correctly. Which, in Brown's old pool, when setup for short course, was shallow the entire length. Not that it's important, just how I remember it.

I can't say for sure what his caloric intake was, mainly because the rest of us had a practice to do. However, I do remember that being an issue of discussion sometime after the set - so it's possible, I just can't verify it. Probably more interesting, and you should ask Josh this, was that we actually went to a teammate's Bat Mitzvah that same night - and I recall him being in quite high spirits - even though most of would probably have slept the next three days if we tried.

Regarding his propensity to train - unrivaled. Dude could put down in training - I've seen him do 500's from a push at 4:25, 200m LC under 2min from a push, among other incredible sets. So does the pace and times surprise me, no, Erik thrived on those types of sets.

This is the most amazing set I've ever heard of on any national or international level!!

Also, note that Larsen Jensen completed 17 X 1,500 LCM on 20:00. He was shooting for 20, didn't get there. To me, that's equally insane. //

It is not even close. What they are saying Eric did in equal terms to Larsen's set, was 19 X1500m on the 16;30. So if you think that 17 on the 20 min is bad ass, add a couple and make it 16;30. Now you can see why i'm a bit skeptical..

"Also, note that Larsen Jensen completed 17 X 1,500 LCM on 20:00. He was shooting for 20, didn't get there. "

well, "I" certainly couldn't do that, but for a guy like Jensen that doesn't seem that bad if all he was trying to do was make them. 20:00 1500's is "only" 1:20's....

I suspect there is something more to the tale if Jensen was unable to get through that set.

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The chocolate chip cookies at Brown during YMCA New England championships back in the day were legendary!! I remember the way you describe the pool well... And yeah Erik was a monster in the making back when I was still swimming in the area!

You'll get no argument from me claiming this was a brisk walk for him!

LCM guys. Long Course Meters.

LCM guys. Long Course Meters. ///


Yes, and the times for LCM 1500 and short course 1650 are pretty much the same, give or take a few seconds. That is why i scaled up his 1000's to 1650, just so we could really see what a workout it was, comparing it to the 1500 also...

IIRC, he had to come in under 18min for each. So it wasn't just "make it." His "make" time was holding better than 1:12s.

EDIT: the "make" time might have been even faster than 18min. I just remember that there was a make time that was definitely at most 18min.

EDIT 2: nope, it was 18min - http://forums.usms.org/...ndex.php/t-3622.html

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IIRC, he had to come in under 18min for each. So it wasn't just "make it." His "make" time was holding better than 1:12s. //

Which goes even more to my point, Eriks swim was on the 16;30, a minute and a half under Larsen's make it time. Not even in the same galaxy. Erik's make it times had to be between 15;30 and 16;20 or so. And Larsen was in the same league as Erik, which just boggles my mind about this workout he supposedly did...

To put into perceptive here is his 1000 when he set american record back in 2008. Think it would be challenging but not impossible.

1 Vendt, Erik K 27 CW-MI 8:48.92 8:36.49
23.44 48.73 (25.29)
1:14.23 (25.50) 1:39.86 (25.63)
2:05.55 (25.69) 2:31.32 (25.77)
2:57.07 (25.75) 3:22.97 (25.90)
3:48.86 (25.89) 4:14.83 (25.97)
4:40.72 (25.89) 5:06.56 (25.84)
5:32.81 (26.25) 5:59.06 (26.25)
6:25.51 (26.45) 6:51.72 (26.21)
7:18.02 (26.30) 7:44.47 (26.45)
8:10.86 (26.39) 8:36.49 (25.63)

You may have taken this into consideration already Monty, but he was doing SCY and this means lots of turns which make it faster.

For context, the WR for 1500 LCM set by hackett in 2001 was 14:34 and his SCM record was 14:10 same year. So same distance but more turns equals 24 sec. SCY would be more turns again (don't know how many). What's the record (assume US) for 1000 scy? That would give some context on his pace.

I think the comparison is a bit apples and oranges. First, I don't think you can do a straight extrapolation from 1000scy to 1500LCM/1650scy. For instance, if I do 100's on the 1:00, by all accounts I should be able to do 400's on the 4:00, but I can't...anymore anyway.

Second, 1500LCM is 29 turns, versus 39 flip turns for 1000scy. So walls help maintain higher average speed. SCY is very much about maintaining speed off the walls for the length of the lap, while LCM is typically about maintaining DPS. The main point being, there is an expected drop off in speed between the two.

More to the point, 1650scy is a faster swim than 1500LCM - even though by 1650yds = 1508m. Consider the 2014 NCAA results, the top 21 finishers are all under 15min for the 1650. Now, lets look at the 2012 Olympics, the winner, Sun Yang is 14:31 - slower than the winner of the NCAA's. The top 7 at the Games were under 15min, most in the 14:50 range.

So as it relates to comparing Jensen and Vendt and their respective sets, I don't think it's quite that simple. Even if the total distance is the same, the swimmer doing LCM will be doing more actual swimming.

More to the point, 1650scy is a faster swim than 1500LCM - even though by 1650yds = 1508m. Consider the 2014 NCAA results, the top 21 finishers are all under 15min for the 1650. Now, lets look at the 2012 Olympics, the winner, Sun Yang is 14:31 - slower than the winner of the NCAA's. The top 7 at the Games were under 15min, most in the 14:50 range. //

I realize it is faster, but only by about .5 second per 100, so a pretty close comparison.(14;31 vs 14;24) I guess you can argue that doing flip turns makes it easier to do a 30k set, but I don't really see that as being true. More turns also means you have to go anaerobic more often, and use your legs a lot more too. But whatever, I think it was correct to scale up his 1000 time to a 1650 since he did 30, 000 yards. This was all about pace, just like Larsens set would have been, just a lot faster in Erik's case..


Now if you were talking about one 1000 and scaling that up to one 1650, then there would of course be some drop off, but not that much even there. For 19 of them I think it is safe to say that his pace would scale up almost to the tenth..And lastly, often the NCAA meet will be much deeper than the olympics. You get a ton of foreigners going to our colleges and every single fast distance swimmer we have at that meet. No 3 per country bull, just the fastest guys from a ton of colleges. Of course it misses the guys out of college, but overall a deeper meet non the less..

Just fyi, the 1650 scales almost exactly to the 1500 scm, where I believe the wr is somewhere around 14:10, just going from memory.

And the extra turns will definitely make the vendt set a faster swim than LCM. No question at all.

Edit, according to Wikipedia, 14:10.10 - grant Hackett 2001.

Edit, I just retread the thread and notice that guns buns already said what the wr was...

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Fair points. Really just want to point out that I think it's possible. I don't want to play the "I was there!" card, because as I mentioned, the rest of us were doing our own practice and certainly I didn't see every single one of the swims. It's kind of funny how I remember some of the specifics of that particular day, perhaps it's because I recognized what he did. However, to be honest, when it came to training sets with Erik, nothing really surprises me. I don't remember the specifics, but apparently while he was at USC, he did some 500FR/400IM combo set and dropped some ridiculous times during it as well.

As a note, his 1000 yard AR was a few years after college - I think coming out of his first "retirement". Competition time wise, I think for the most part, he was faster then before his first retirement.

Just fyi, the 1650 scales almost exactly to the 1500 scm, where I believe the wr is somewhere around 14:10, just going from memory. //

Well it is closer in time to the LCM time than it is to the SCM time i believe. No one has gone close to 14;10 for the 16;50, have they? I see mid 14;20's in my searches, so just about 7 or so seconds off the WR for 1500 LCM, and double that in comparison to the 1500 SCM.

Fair points. Really just want to point out that I think it's possible.//

It does seem possible, that is why i just don't come out and call bullshit, like some of the other swimming claims that have been made here. Like when someone said they saw Potts swim 10 to 15x 100LCM on the minute. They were so sure, but when i pointed out the fact that this would be a set for Sun Yang, and maybe a handful of other world class distance guys, they backed off on the claim. This all seems plausible, but i still cannot reconcile those two done on the 9;30 interval, and so close together and bracketed by several on the 9;45. Dude must have been on and swimming like a machine that day.

I think you're missing Monty's point. For a 30,000yd set, I'm gonna go ahead and wager that he's not pushing the envelope on every single turn, maximizing time under water, etc. the way you could for a one off. Having some experience doing challenging five hour workouts (albeit for cycling), I get what he's driving at - you can't go over the redline and expect to be okay. There's just not the recovery.

So, yes, if you are talking about WR performances, where guy are squeezing every last drop of optimisation out of the turns, etc., then yes, "SCY is a *LOT* faster than LCM." But for 30k? Even if you are generous and go way over on compensation, you're saying that Eric could do 19x1500LCM on an 18min turnover when Larsen couldn't even make 18x sub-18 on a 20min turnover. And he's an Olympic silver medalist in the 1500...

There are plenty of guys, though, who were way better in practice than in races. Vendt might have just been one of those guys who was the Michael Phelps of training. That certainly seems to be his reputation. The #2 set on most of these "epic set" lists belongs to Jeff Kostoff with his 4x5000 on 50:00. Kostoff still holds the US Junior record for 1000fr despite all the advances in suit technology, underwater, etc. And yet he was another guy who never performed at the same level on the big stage (he actually talks about it in some good interviews). For a guy who was that dominant in high school and in training, a 6th and a 9th in two Olympics is not exactly what you expect. Vendt's Olympic and WC record is obviously much better than Kostoff's, but you'd also expect that from someone who could do what he apparently has done in training...

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Yeah, but grant Hackett never swam scy :-)

I'm struggling to think of guys who would have done both the 1650 and the 1500 scm in peak shape, shaved and tapered.

But yeah, the scm to scy is almost exactly the right conversion. The 6 extra turns in yards makes up for the 8 extra metres swum.

Edit- playing with the speedo time conversion utility on swimswam, a 16:00.0 1650 converts to a 16:19.2 LCM 1500, and a 15:55 scm 1500

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You don't have to be pushing the envelope to make scm faster than LCM. Really, you don't. Even just routine turns are way faster, without trying to extend them with dolphin kicks off the wall.

And I'm not really arguing for or against the legitimacy of the 30x1000 as described. Just that it's faster to do that scy than LCM, without question.

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I swim with a guy who swam a Brown 10 or so years ago. we finished our set today and I start telling him about this set I read on some guy swimming 30x1000 on 10:00. At first, I couldn't remember the name... no lie, my friend goes, "there's only one guy I know that could've or would've done that set... Erik Vendt. He's fucking crazy". He swam with and against him from time to time in college.

I read an interview with Vendt somewhere and he said he fell asleep in the pool gutter after the last 1000!!! Have you heard this before??? Also, JOOC, do you remember what month/year he did this workout??? In any case, it is great to hear from a person who was actually at that workout:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

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.

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Hey, pm me your name and I'll say hi to Josh from you. I'll also mention the bar mitzvah thing - he'll get a kick out of it for sure.

Holy flying fish Batman, that's some crazy fast swimming and he's in theory mainly a middle D swimmer. That's about 55.9 per 100 scy for 50 100s in a row and equates to a 39:21 for the 4225 yd iron swim if swum in a 25-yd pool, in a practice swim:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

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

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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.

Ya, I've watched the youtube video of that swim, pretty amazing at 8:54.5 per 1000 or 53.45 per 100scy for 20 100s in a row. I kind of wish that FINA would institute a 3000 m pool swim for national/international meets. You'd have to make the qualifying times very strict though, so that you only maybe had 2 or 3 heats of 30-32-ish minutes. I just think it would be cool to see what the real distance swimmers could do in pool conditions, i.e. no drafting:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

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:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Apparently I'm not allowed to PM. Anyway, last time I saw Josh was probably Dec '10, my wife and I had breakfast with him at place right by his apartment. He was living in Massachusetts at the time. I recently returned from deployment and happened to be visiting home, Rhode Island, and ran into a friend of mine from High School who also swam with him. I want to say Carla was working that day and couldn't make it. I'm pretty sure he moved to Australia a few months later. If he's coaching your kids like he coached us, I have no doubt you're getting your money's worth.

Yep, he's coaching here in Sydney, Aust and he coaches both my kids (son 21 and daughter 18).

You're right, he's the real deal. They've been on a number of state and national camps with Aust swim team coaches, and both say he's the best coach they've had. He's now one of ours - you can't have him back!

He and Carla have two beautiful kids now and he lives near our most famous beach. I've been trying to get him used to our humour but it's a work in progress :)

Awesome, glad to hear it - I imagine Australia is a change of pace from New England. I do some open water swimming now; when I was getting back into swimming after a 7 year hiatus, I still remembered all the things he used to say. Ask him if he remembers playing paintball back when he was still coaching the Squids - one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Here's an old ST interview with Vendt from back in 2008, before his last oly trials:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._Slowtwitch_279.html

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

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

So how does everyone think he'd go in an IM in his prime or even today?

When he was doing this monster set, could he drop the best pros in the swim?

big engine and great capacity to hurt himself.....

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.

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...

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.

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

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Thanks Chap, I didn't see that one when it came out. That story is pretty telling coming from an NFL player:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

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.

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RD at Clash Endurance

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.

Ah, thanks for the correction, got my R. Carey's mixed up:) I pulled out my Sept '96 Oly Games issue of Swimming World and sure enough there he was, going 2:01.10 for the 200 fly in the prelims. That time was no doubt very disappointing to him, since he went faster at the Trials. Looking at the USA Swimming web site, he went 1:57.66 at Trials and finished 2nd behind Tom Malchow (1:57.39), edging out Mel Stewart (1:57.89), the AR holder (1:55.69) at the time. I remember that time frame well b/c Melvin was swimming at one of the pools I sometimes swam at, and everyone thought it was very cool that he was training for the Oly Trials at our pool:)

Any idea if Rick and Ray are related, brothers maybe???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

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?

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Swimming, the cruelest, most honest sport. No special favors and no excuses, either you make the cut or you do not.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

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.

The reason that I mentioned the Phelps one is that Phelps did the 5 9:20's in a row (no rest), but in the 30x1000 as described in post #1, Vendt would have only done 1. the rest of the workout would have been at a slower pace than that.

Truth is, we'll probably never know 100% what really happened that day. But it is just plausible enough that it might have happened. and that might be good enough to inspire some other kid to try and beat it. Which would be cool.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

The main difference between Vendt and Flanangan/Potts is that Vendt is a swimmer (he is still a swimmer FYI I hear he might take a stab at the 10K ). When Flanagan was a "swimmer" in 2008 he beat Potts by quite a bit at Kona (48:40 / 47:02). When he turned pro triathlete the next year he couldn't out swim him. It is difficult to compare years and who knows what Potts would have done in '07 had Flanagan been there.

But what I really was trying to say is that a lot of biking and running slows you down in the water!

Perhaps gunsbuns can answer this but was Vendt's coach reading these send-off times from a logbook??? Otherwise, I would find it hard to believe that he could remember all these various send-off times precisely, just off the top of his head, for a workout done 17 or 18 yrs ago. Also, the end part of "then 5 on 10:00 and so on..." is pretty vague since he lists the first 15 send-off times but not the last 15:)

But, regardless of what the exact send-off times were, it was still an extremely epic set:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Well, it's the 'Truth' according to the person who set the set and stood on pool deck with the stopwatch in his hand. You and other doubters can ponder all you want and there have been various versions by people who weren't even there (I certainly wasn't) but if ANYONE would know 'the truth' it ain't you, or me, or joeblow. It's his coach at the time. Probably not even the guy who did it would recall the go times or the finish times.

You also have to understand swimming a bit. Phelps is arguably the greatest swimmer of all time BUT he wasn't within cooee of ever being an elite distance freestyle swimmer. Anyway, had he tried to do the same, maybe he could have. The fact is he didn't (as far as we know). Vendt did - lots of witnesses - and the guy who set the set and took the times says it happened as posted. His exact words! I only took out the ''Hi Mitch'. You and others here might do a bit of triathlon and dabble in swimming but the guy telling the tale has coached a guy to Olympic silver behind..... Phelps!

I think it is bullshit. Well more likely just an innocent case of getting faster as the story gets older. Keep in mind, Jason, that this set is alleged to have occurred when Erik was a teenager. He was "only" a 4:24 in HS when he was swimming for Stern.

His words taken from an email so he could have been reading from an old book. My experience with many coaches though is that their memory for splits of swimmers past far exceeds even their memory of birthdays and anniversaries. But I shall ask him in person. I'm sure he'll be amused at all the 'expert' swimming coaches out there who are saying it couldn't be done and his recolection is wrong.

Surely in the absence of disputing evidence such as a video, or scientific proof that it's physiologicaly not possible, the jury would have to accept the testimony of the acknowledged expert (the coach) who has a clean record, no priors, and who says on oath - this is the true version!

ericmulk wrote:

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

You're thinking Rick Carey. I'm talking about Ray Carey:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Carey_%28swimmer%29

EDIT: sorry, just noticed people above already answered this. Also, as far as I know the careys are not related. I grew up swimming against Ray.

Just want to address the above about Phelps not being an elite distance swimmer. He dabbled in the 400 free and was going under 3:50 in season. Because he didn't do it any opinion is as valid as the next but I think Phelps would have been under 14:45 if the 1500 had been his focus.

Guns - Thanks for being the link to the real source of this extremely epic set!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

You don't spend much time on a swim deck. There is sometimes a guy who can tell you what so and so split on this relay or on this set or at this meet. That guy isn't usually the head coach. And a 4:24 500 freestyler is not remotely good enough to perform the set as you described.

Ya, I was getting my R. Carey's mixed up. Interesting that they are not related. Did you ever talk to him after the '96 Games??? I'll bet he was bummed to have swum 3.4 sec slower in the Games than in the Trials, but OTOH, he made it all the way to the oly games, which is pretty huge:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

400 free for men is really Middle distance but it would be hard to argue that the greatest Olympian (No of gold) of all time who was pretty handy at 400IM couldn't have been a top distance swimmer had he wanted to. I wouldn't even argue that he could do the Vendt set if he set his mind to it. Put the two of them next to each other and they may have got to 40! Would have been an epic battle to see who got dropped first. I'd love to throw Grant Hackett in the third lane as well. You could watch the start for an hour or so, wonder off, have a meal and come back to watch the battle. That's one training set that would tantalise.

Nope, your right. Watched more training sessions than I care to remember over the last 14 or 15 years (only because I actually enjoy watching and learning) and In competition I'm always up in the stands (or bleachers as you guys say) and with the electronic timing and big screens, everyone can see what the splits are. I'm pretty good at remembering my kids times but not splits and was a bit of a wiz working out relay splits so other parents would know. But I don't get the reference to me as I'm not the coach and this isn't MY TRUTH.

Every coach I've ever come across managed very well with their swimmers splits so not sure who must have coached you (bad experience maybe?) and I know most usually also do stroke rates so that's two measurements they are mostly pretty good at.

I'm just trying to pass on what most informed people would accept as the likely accurate description of a set that has had different versions. The version I've given isn't mine, it's his coach. I'm not losing any sleep if you don't believe his coach or if you believe or don't believe in the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny or Santa.

I think a question is when he did the 4:24, was it at a shaved and tapered meet? Both the 1997 and 1998 Spring Nationals were LCM, not SCY. So the question to me is whether he ever same a 500 in his high school years when he was actually rested for it.

For sake of argument, here are his results from '97 and '98 Spring Nationals:
'97: As a 16 year old
800FR: 8:25.05
400FR: 4:01.97
1500FR: 15:57.52

'98: As a 17 year old
800FR: 8:03.46
400IM: 4:23.19
400FR: 3:54.44 Which converts to a 4:22.67 500scy. So chances are he was faster than his best SCY 500 time.
1500FR: 15:30.65

Exactly my point. Apparently it is you who is that guy on your pool deck. You know more about splits than the coach and it means more to you than the coach. Which is why the coach has no idea what he is talking about. I am that guy too. Take it as a compliment. You know more about the truth on this than Josh. Well, as soon as you see the light!

Vendt was better at LCM but I am not going to quibble over 4:24 or 4:22 or 4:20. Either way the point is the swimmer who is alleged to have performed this set wasn't even true world class at the time.

World beater at the time, no, I agree with that. Looking back at the results now, what I find most impressive is his consistent progression, he never really leveled out. Within two years he's breaking 15min for the 1500 and racing to Silver behind Dolan in the 400IM. I think one of the things that made Erik special was the mentality that he had, I don't think sets like 30x1000 phased him mentally, I think he loved that stuff.

As I mentioned above, I know he did 30 - that I remember. His actual splits and times, couldn't tell you, was busy in our own workout and him doing extraordinary things in practice was pretty normal. Could I believe he did those times, yes, if only because of what we saw from him everyday, to the point I think a lot of us took it for granted.

"You could watch the start for an hour or so, wonder off, have a meal and come back to watch the battle."

Is that what those "lots of witnesses" you mentioned above did? Wandered off and came back hours later?

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… //


I think you need to go back and take a look at this race. As i recall Potts sat on his feet virtually the entire way. Flanagan was going for the record and Potts was stretched to stay on his feet most of the time, but never in any real danger of getting popped. But it was fast enough that every once in awhile you could see potts fade back just a bit off the feet, but then recover pretty quickly. Looked like a textbook case of perfect drafting as far as i could tell. And andy has swam in the pack on several occasions, when it suits his overall race plan.. He has no trouble swimming onto someones bubbles...

Look, final comments

1. rcs430 was there and he confirms the set happened. He was in the pool training at the time.
He says: "So does the pace and times surprise me, no, Erik thrived on those types of sets. "
"Really just want to point out that I think it's possible",
"when it came to training sets with Erik, nothing really surprises me."
and finally "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."

2. So with respect, unless someone has a better direct relationship or understanding of this swimmer (eg was in his squad like rcs) or was there on the day and was taking splits (AJThomas?) and disputes this, then I think we have to give his opinion a little more weight than every other poster to this thread.

3. Josh was there and he was the coach. He confirmed it happened and he gave his version of how, why and some colour (food intake etc). He has zero to gain by embellishing. He does not strike me as a 'bragger', in fact he's the opposite.

4.Coaches take splits. They always do! It sounds like only two people in the world were likely there for the whole 5 hrs because as rcs says, the rest of the squad came in later - and one of those two was pretty busy swimming.

All this means that there is likely only one person who knows what the go times and splits were

AND that ladies and gentlemen is,,,,, the coach!

It's not really a big deal to me - I just wanted to take an opportunity to share the details of an interesting story that has graced the internet and has a few different versions. I know Josh reasonably well and I believe him

^ so much of this.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Guns - Nice summary; regardless of the dispute on the details, thanks for posting this thread to start with. Very interesting:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Link where another guy says he heard directly from Stern what the set was and (of course) it isn't what you posted:

http://d3swimming.com/...;t=5985&start=15

And your Point?

I disnt witness the workout, but I did swim with some world class swimmers. This doesn't strike me as untrue.

When I swam I saw guys on the team who were training for the 25k world championships at the time swim 25k+ in a workout while pulling a 20 gallon bucket behind them with a hole in the bottom. And still swimming fast. There is a reason they call them world class athletes.

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
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"You know every guy on the basketball team had to run a mile under 5:30 or they got cut," says a friend of mine at the basketball game.
"You mean to tell me that that huge center. You know the clumsy one -who is what 7'2" ? and clearly 150 lbs over weight- the one who gets tired after standing under the basket? He ran a sub 5:30 mile?"
"Yeah it says so in the news paper. His coach wouldn't make that up."

You know we have to listen to football coaches make up ridiculous lies about how Super Blob Footballer X can out sprint Usain Bolt.

This is just minor exaggeration in comparison.
No doubt there is a lot of truth in here.

Looked up the 1988 Trials and you are absolutely correct as Frentsos finished 3rd in 4:20.41 behind Dave Wharton's 4:16.32 and Jeff Kostoff's 4:20.23. So, he had some really stiff competition in that event. IIRC, Wharton once did a 16,000 IM long course, and Kostoff did the 5 x 5000 scy on 50:00, so some extremely tough competition here:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

My coach thought it would be fun to do a "animal set" back when I was 15 years. Old.

1000m Warm up, 500 Kick Smooth

20 X 800m. 8 Free, 4 IM order, 8 Free (alternate Pull Paddle). Took out team about 4.5 hours to finish it off. Still the hardest workout I have even done.

GUNSBUNS,

Say hi to Josh from Dave D too. Tell him im still in boston coaching. Ill look for his old emails and hope they work. if they don't Ill give you mine and have him reach out please.

As for Erik and his training, if josh said he did it. Then Erik did it. I was with josh and erik for most of his lead up to Sydney... that kid is secretly a hero of mine.(erik and josh for that matter). Josh is an awesome coach and an even better person.

DaveD

Hmm...I may have been remembering Potts and Sansone when they swam side by side. Now I remember Potts not going for the swim prime too hard since he took Jon's feet. Potts is on record saying he can't stand swimming on people feet and tries to avoid it...

A bit off topic, but I hadn't known Jerry Frentsos was that close to making the Olympics. Last month I was at a local scm masters meet. The roads were terribly icy and it took me 1.5 hours to make the less than 20 mile drive to the meet. The meet was delayed in part because "some guy" was coming to try to break the WR in the M50-54 400 IM. It turns out it was Frentsos and he was coming from Maryland with his wife and kid. They got to within a mile of the pool and the road was blocked. So he left them there in the car and walked to the pool, had maybe 5-10 mins to warm up then was up on the blocks. He missed the record by about a second...but won Husband and Dad of the year award, ha.

I don't question Vendt's killer set. If his best 1000 time was 8:30-ish then doing 10 min ave send-offs doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.

-leh

That 47:02 was awesome, but there was a former pro OWS (Noa Sakamoto) who went 47:01 with Flanagan that day...and those 2 were leading the AG swim, but were swimming through the pro wakes, while Potts was out front with fresh undisturbed water... I'm sure those 2 were going for the fastest swim they could reasonably manage that day...

Here's my favorite swimming workout video. It's from the Longhorns varsity / post-grad mid-distance & sprinters a few years ago. The main set is really tough: it's something like 3K yards in less than 40 minutes. There are lots of famous swimmers. Eddie Reese is such a great coach. Look at some of the times Ricky Berens pulls in this set: 2:36 on the last 300, 48.4 on the last 100... from a push.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAtIH0v-MY8

Watching this video, you start to understand the fitness it takes to be elite swimmer and the talent that you need to possess.

I don't question Vendt's killer set. If his best 1000 time was 8:30-ish then doing 10 min ave send-offs doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.

-leh//

But you are a swimmer, and that is not what they are saying. What if they said he did one on the 8;30 and one one the 11;30, 10 minute average and only two of them. But completely impossible. You cannot look at the average here, but the outlier super fast intervals. Two on the 9;30 and several more on the 9;45 bracketing those really fast ones. Like i said, i believe it could have happened this way, but 95% of me says that something fishy has been handed down since that workout. And it appears he did it when he was not even at his prime, so makes it even that much harder to believe.


But great discussion from a lot of the experienced fishes here. Wont be the first time a monster workout became a fish tale. And i think the only one that does know what happened that day is Erik himself. He would remember this for sure, unless he was just one of those guys that swam and let the coach do all the math. But knowing top level swimmers, have to guess not..

The point should be obvious. Your version of the "truth" and Chip's version of the truth comes from the same source. Why is one more believable than another? To extend the Olive Branch may I suggest:

1) Erik Vendt was one of the most amazing practice swimmers of all time.
2) Erik undoubtedly swam 30 x 1000 as a teenager under the tutelage of Josh Stern.
3) This story has grown to mythical proportions, we all get to choose which version is accurate.

I choose to believe the 10:45 / 10:30 / 10:15 version because I heard it for many years and it is what I originally read just a few years after it happened. Though honestly I have probably "believed" the 30 @ 10:00 at times too because memories get foggy and that version of the set has been published a lot in reason years. I think the reason that the set has gotten faster overtime is because people forget that Vendt did this as a teenager. This very thread shows cleaving of Erik Vendt 14:45 1500M swimmer with the teenager who did this set. The 10:45 / 10:30 / 10:15 set is as much a testament to his will power than swim prowess. And because will power and mental fortitude is vastly underrated and hard to quantify the story has turned into the physical triumph has grown...

I have enjoyed this discussion a lot.

Depending on the size of the hole, that's either REALLY impressive or not actually that meaningful.

I've done quite a lot of swimming with drag chutes. I bought one chute from Australia. It was quite expensive. Very bells and whistles. But even at its hardest setting, it just wasn't that hard. But it looked very impressive. On the flipside, I have a dinky little Stretchcordz parachute that doesn't look like much, but which is VERY hard, because it has NO hole at all.

A 20 gallon bucket is HUGE. Most - if not all - of the swimmers I've ever seen using a bucket for training use a 5gal bucket.

I'd actually submit that there is likely no meaningful difference between 5gal and 20gal. The difficulty in swimming with a bucket or a parachute or whatever is entirely dependent on how big the entrance is and how big the exit - if there is one - is. If the guys pulling the bucket were still swimming kind of fast - and even simply able to swim 25k with a bucket, I'd submit that it just wasn't that much additional drag. But it sure sounds impressive...

This is the great irony about epic training threads. There's rarely - if ever - any correlation between the training and the results. I remember a favorite story that Slowman liked to tell about Brad Kearns and Andrew McNaughton, who one time rode their bikes from where Andrew lived out in Thousand Oaks out to Tehachapi (something like that anyway). It was a monstrous ride, with very little in the way of aid en route. Dan tells this story as an example of, "Now see, pro triathletes back in the day. They knew how to train. That's why they went so fast!"

But, i am actually good friends with Andrew. So I asked him about this. And he said, "that was easily the stupidest training session Brad and I ever did. We were sick for a few weeks afterwards, could hardly train, and definitely did ourselves more harm than good."

In my experience having been around a variety of Olympic gold medalists in different sports, their training is typically very mundane. Most of these guys do not do training sessions that leave you scratching your head and wondering, "how did they do that." It's the ability to back up hard - but not insane - training day after day after day after day after day.

Epic training sessions are great for internet threads. They rarely, in my experience, translate into results.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

That's exactly why they're talked about in revered, hushed tones. Because it is a ridiculously stupid thing to do, if you just measure it by training effect. It sets you back days, if not weeks, in your regular training program.

However, everyone has done the "stupid" set. Not to the level that Vendt (allegedly) did it, but we've all done something that is simply a "character building" set. and that makes it fun. The kids won't remember what time they made for the 18th repeat of feb 6th's 2nd set of 20 x 100 on 1:15. But they do remember the time that coach made them swim a 6000 IM. or 10 x 200 fly.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

30x1000 is a stunt, not a training set.

And, when the hot shot local high school team does a set of 100x100 one day over Christmas Break it too is a stunt, not really a training set. Same with somebody popping off an epic 150 mile ride (ideally in bad weather with other random difficulties popping up as well . . .).

But, stunts can be a great mental booster, particularly when done in groups. Training can get boring and swim training is more boring than most. Everybody has to have a little fun now and then trying to convince themselves they are a bad ass to keep spirits up. And, when word gets around about the epic stunts, it does give one a slight psychological edge over those folks who did not have the balls to try stunts of their own.

The 10:45/10:30/10:15 set is as much a testament to his will power as his swim prowess. And because will power and mental fortitude are vastly underrated and hard to quantify, the story of his physical triumph has grown...

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I am rather proud of that line : )

That set is def hard core. Longest i've ever done to date is 12 x 1000 scy free. Last year i averaged 53,000 yd/wk doing the USMS Go The Distance Challenge and my arms, and legs cause i kicked a lot, are still recovering from all those yards:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I've did that several times on the 1:20 back in high school. Not too bad. Also, it's hardly a "stunt". It builds team spirit and becomes a marker in the season. Makes you hungry as hell, if I remember correctly.

Just from my own experience (and I have not done 20 x 1000 but have done 5000 fly, 16000 swims etc) I used to be able to crank out repeat 1000s pretty easily on an 11 minute send-off dropping down to sub 10:30 on my fastest one on a good day. My best time, shaved and tapered, was only 10:08. So if one was on 9:30 and his best time was 8:30 that doesn't seem that incredible. I would think he would be able to do 3 in a row, at least, on a send-off that is a minute slower than his best time. Doing 20 of them NO WAY but a couple in the middle of a set? Sure, I believe that.

-leh

Very cool that he's back swimming again. Looking at the FINA WRs, he must have gone 4:49 as the current WR is 4:48.02; pretty quick for anyone but espec a 50 yr old guy:)

Also, I happened to notice that the FINA masters WRs start with the 25-29 AG so apparently the 18-24 is just in the U.S. and maybe a few other countries like Canada. Was not aware of this.

ETA: Looked up the USMS records and he holds the 45-49 record at 4:43.64 set in Sept 2010, and a David Sims holds the 50-54 at 4:49.49, set on 14 Dec 2014.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Well his best time was 8;37, shaved, tapered, from a dive, and in the cheater suit. And it was long after he supposedly did this set , so he was not nearly this fast at the time, in fact quite a bit slower. Someone pointed out he was in the low 4;20's for a 500 when he did this. . And they say he did two on the 9;30 with several more on the 9;45. And he did 30X1000, not 20X1000. So that is doing at the very least 1000's at 4;40 pace for a couple, and not too much slower for the 9;45 base. So if he was doing lets say 4;20 from a dive and tapered at the time he did this set, that is pretty dam close to his all out one pace for 60 X 500"s!!!

It is the hard efforts sprinkled in the set that make it hard. That and counting to 40 over and over and over and over . . .) Assuming he did not do more than a handful of the 30 are a truly hard effort, it is certainly plausible he could have averaged under 10 minutes for all 30. Plus the legion never mentions the slow one. If all he did was average 10:00 but he did some in the 930's, that means he had might have had some 10:20's in there too.

My guess based on 12 seconds of googling results would be he was around a 9:00 1000 swimmer late in high school. Some of the stated intervals were quick but some were almost a minute and half off his race pace. I was a decent distance swimmer but certainly not of Vendt's level (but high school Vendt only would have lapped me once ;-). Fortunately no one ever asked me to see how long I could swim at 1:00-1:30 over my 1000 race pace but I can tell you it would have been for a long time. Maybe not 5 hours but a couple hours. Now, I would have crashed and burned if I had done more than a couple at 30 seconds off race pace in a long set but, that was also one of the big differentiators between the OK folks and the great folks, i.e. the ability to repeat super hard efforts. But if all you wanted some decent distance guy or gal to do was make a send off interval that was 1:00 off race pace, most distance swimmers could do that for a fairly long time.

I was speaking to the veracity of the set, not the utility. But since you brought it up, I would disagree with some of the sentiments of your post. These epic sets are all part of the fuel of competition. To see if you can go farther, faster, longer or better than the other guy. It's a challenge. Especially if you are a world class athlete that has already put in a lot of training.

Also, in swimming sets like those, while highly infrequent, can get at something that is largely overlooked which is the mental durability/mental discipline that is needed to perform at a high level. I would agree that the training is very mundane and, in swimming, if you can improve by .5 to 1 second at the end of a very hard year then that is a huge accomplishment.

Lastly, this is just for fun. And I'll send you a picture of the bucket. 20+ years ago we didn't have all the high tech equipment that you have to train. We made our own. That's where the bucket came from.

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
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I actually disagree a lot with the part in bold. And, based on the apparent timing of this particular set in Vendt's career, I think it actually undermines the logic of that argument as well.

Very few - if any - people who ARE world class athletes do epic sets. That was part of my point. Many folks do them BEFORE they are world class, for precisely the reasons you mention - to see if you can. To see if you can go farther, faster, longer, and/or better than the other guy.

Once you are a world class athlete, you don't need to see if you can do that. You KNOW you can do that.

If you've already put in a lot of training, you don't need to see if you can do something stupid and epic. You've (probably) already done it.

But if you think you COULD BE world class, then yes. The dumbest stuff I ever did, I did as a rower. I've done my fair share of ridiculous workouts as a triathlete. Precisely to see if I could. Having done them, I'm not sure there are any that I'd say i should not have, but I also wouldn't say I got all that much out of them. Maybe some confidence. That sort of thing is hard to objectively quantify within yourself...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

That's ok. Reasonable people can disagree.

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
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speak for yourself.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Rappstar: But if you think you COULD BE world class, then yes. The dumbest stuff I ever did, I did as a rower. I've done my fair share of ridiculous workouts as a triathlete. Precisely to see if I could. Having done them, I'm not sure there are any that I'd say i should not have, but I also wouldn't say I got all that much out of them. Maybe some confidence. That sort of thing is hard to objectively quantify within yourself...

AJThomas: The 10:45/10:30/10:15 set is as much a testament to his will power as his swim prowess. And because will power and mental fortitude are vastly underrated and hard to quantify, the story of his physical triumph has grown.

Jason in Halifax: That's exactly why they're talked about in revered, hushed tones. Because it is a ridiculously stupid thing to do, if you just measure it by training effect. It sets you back days, if not weeks, in your regular training program.

Snapping T: Also, in swimming sets like those, while highly infrequent, can get at something that is largely overlooked which is the mental durability/mental discipline that is needed to perform at a high level. I would agree that the training is very mundane and, in swimming, if you can improve by .5 to 1 second at the end of a very hard year then that is a huge accomplishment.

STP: But, stunts can be a great mental booster, particularly when done in groups. Training can get boring and swim training is more boring than most. Everybody has to have a little fun now and then trying to convince themselves they are a bad ass to keep spirits up. And, when word gets around about the epic stunts, it does give one a slight psychological edge over those folks who did not have the balls to try stunts of their own.

It seems that all five of you actually agree that doing "epic workouts" are a great way to build confidence. In the triathlon world, I've read that Dave Scott did a 6000 yd sw/112 mi bk/26.2 mi run all by himself back in 1980 before he ever won his first iron race. Most people on ST now would prob say that workout was a "big waste of time":)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I heard there was a pro triathlete that did a 15 x 1k set once... I think there was a bunch of IM in there, too. Sounds pretty EPIC. ;)

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Jason Pedersen
RunPd.com - Running as fast I can since '93
@jasonpedersen

Later this year I am going to do 30 x 1000.
Here is how I will do them:
10 x 1000 ascending- on 11:00, 11:05, 11:15, 11:30, 11:55, 12:30, 13:10, 13:30, 14:30 (that's 10 right?)
A short refueling break (2 hours)

5 x 1000s - on 15, 15:50, 17, 17:40, 19
A short chat with the lifeguard break - "no i wasn't really drowning"
Short pool change and car nap.
10 x 1000s 15, 16,17, 20, 26, 30
Get a taxi to drive me home.

That's 30 x 1000s on 11:00 right?
Or almost?

That is a great video, and only 8 min rather than the 40-ish i was expecting, but plenty of time to show the highlights of this set. Of course, great form for all of these guys:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

So, I was reading the latest issue of Swimming World magazine (July 2020) and came upon an article entitled "Aerobic Overload: Volume Revisited, Part 2", wherein 5 or 6 top swimmers discussed how high volume swimming had helped them become fast swimmers. Among these was Nathan Adrian who trained 100,000 yds/wk in his teen years despite being mainly a 50/100 swimmer, but of course 100K/wk is old hat, lots pf swimmers have done that kind of yardage. No, the most incredible part of Adrian's story though was not his training but rather his coach's training. In his teens Adrian was coached by Jay Benner who was a national class distance swimmer back in the 80s. In prep for the 1988 Oly Trials, Benner swam 180,000 LONG COURSE METERS PER WEEK FOR 8 MONTHS STRAIGHT. Let's think about that for a minute: if we assume 4000 meters/hr on average, then that is 45 hours per week of pure swimming. That's an average of about 6.5 hrs/day, 7 days/wk, for about 35 wks straight. Also, 3 days per week were 40,000 LCM PER DAY, with the other 4 days as "recovery days" at only 15,000 LCM/day. Holy frigging shot Batman, can you say sore shoulders??? Can you say back so sore you can't even flip turn???

Eric Vendt's 30 x 100 scy was certainly hugely epic, but this guy Benner was doing much more, day in and day out for 8 months. That is some real dedication. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Did he get to the Olympics though?

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Group Eleven – Websites for Athletes / mikael.racing / @mstaer

Unfortunately no, he did not as he finished 9th in 15:31 in the 1500 m prelims at the 1988 Trials. IMO though, this does not take anything away from his titanic effort. I just can't fathom swimming 180,000 LCM in one single week, let alone for 34-35 weeks straight. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Tell Josh hi from Dave Dornaus too...

Where is he now?

Anyways, knowing josh and erik, and hearing about this set back in the day, im inclined to think it really happened. Josh is/was a nut ! I love that guy. Never ever held back and he had a race horse in Erik. I do think Erik is here in the boston area though its been a couple years since I have heard of a sighting. The last sighting was a private health club from a fellow coach who was working there. She said she saw this guy moving up and down the pool and seemed to be going pretty good. Then she watched the clock for 600 yards and he was holding 57s/100....

daved

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http://www.theundergroundcoach.com

And he was prob relatively "out of shape" then...

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."