I guess I'm a little more fortunate, because I actually like to swim. I just swim slow for endurance building and I'm not really working on speed. I hated when the pool was closed. Not only did I lose what little speed/form I had, I missed swimming.

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Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.

Coming back will of course be individual, but I would say if you were out for a year, about a month of good swimming and you would probably be 95% back. And for triathlon, 95% is fine. I'm in week 3 now of being back, and things are starting to come around. I would imagine after one more solid week of 3 or 4 times(2k to 3k), I will be 95% back on free. Now for strokes, probably need another month to dial those in. But I enjoy swimming, so I look forward to each workout and the little progress that comes with...

I hadn't swam since March until this week.

The first swim back I felt crappy and sluggish. I tried doing sets at a pace 10 seconds per 100 yards slower than I was in march, but quickly had to switch to an interval 20 seconds slower.

2 days later I was feeling much better. I was swimming sets at 10 seconds slower per 100 yards than in March. I think it will take me a few months to get back to where I was in march, but I don't have any races on my calendar for a while so thats jut fine.


I personally like to swim and was missing getting in the pool when it was closed.

is the reason for not swimming is the overhead, or you only do it to do triathlon competition and if you have no competition you have no desire to do it. Almost all the top triathletes have a great swim background. It is hard to beat the cardio load of swim training with bike and run, so you may be giving that up.

I hope you don't give it up. Some of my best runs in triathlons have also happened when I had excellent swim fitness followed by excellent bike fitness. I think a lot of people overlook the overall longer race time they end up with when swim fitness is down, not because their swim time is that much longer (it may only be a minute in a half IM for example), but how badly it CAN hurt the back end of the run.

If it is a time management thing, then that's another criteria, and in that case I would agree with your plan. You'll get it all back quickly especially if you have good bike and run fitness.

Take it slowly mate but get out there in the sunshine and do it for the pleasure and the fitness benefits..

I have been injured and ill for a very long time now and it affected me to the point where I stopped swim "training" for a few years. Now, I am a swimmer and be it pool laps or hours of body surfing to me there "usually" is nothing better to keep me motivated to train overall. Stupidly I kept entering Ironman races and Ultras and ended up in hospital every year for the last four years,one of those time was with pulmonary edema on day two of an Ultraman.Just silly stuff!

Fast forward to December last year and finally I hit the pool after a four year absence and after two months of just swimming and doing a mainly drill based, loose training program things started to come back to normal.In March I was already so into it that I was looking at a 6k a day challenge for the month of April.Then our pool shut due to COVID.I got back into my non swimming funk and again didn't swim really until last month.Now,a month in and I am happily tooling around swimming about 60k a month but am still so wary of the potential of injury (I am 56) that there will be no real speedwork until October.Why,because I don't have any races coming and I just want to enjoy swimming in the sunshine and getting swim fit again.

I wish every triathlete loved swimming instead of feeling that it is a chore.I guess if I wasn't a swimmer I wouldn't have done half the fun events that I have and met the awesome folks I have met around the world.Get in the water!

I have access to pool but i have no motivation to swim. If I want to go for a 2-3k swim that takes 45-60 min, I have to tack on another 75 min of driving, changing, showering, and driving back. It is inefficient and for what? I have no races on the calendar and they will prob shut down the gyms again in a month.

As far as how long, I got in the pool after a few months shut down for 3-4 weeks. The first 2-3 swims were sluggish. But for some reason I am faster after the break. I just don’t have the muscular endurance. 100’s are great but my pace fell off really quickly after 200.

I think it won’t take long to get back to your form. But it really depends if you’re a contender or a participant. If you’re at the pointy end, then it’s a concern but then again everyone is in the same shit show.

12 weeks off took 12 sessions to get back to pre-break speed/endurance.

I’m wondering this for myself

As soon as the pool closed I’m March I started 3x/week 55 mins on a a VASA. Wondering how much I’ll have lost by the time I get back to real swimming whenever that might be

It took you 6 - 7 weeks to come back from a 3 month lay off a few years ago

Total guess - you are a few years older. Maybe add a couple weeks to the 6 - 7 weeks?

And another couple weeks because it’s now 12 months VS last time it was 3 months?

If you have a long history of swimming technique will come back quickly, and conditioning will come back at a speed dependent on how hard and smart you work.

If you became a proficient swimmer recently then you will have to work on technique as well.
.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I'm in exactly the same place, except I've done 4 swims since March, but none sine early June (when I made the decision to not swim). 2 of those were open water with friends and 2 were when pools opened back up here in Texas in June. I was motivated to swim at that point because Lubbock was still going full steam ahead. After the 2nd pool swim I said F it, swimming sucks, I'm not going to get back into swim shape when this race is most likely to get cancelled anyway.

I wasn't planning on swimming again until maybe a couple months before Galveston 70.3 in 2021. I think that is a fine plan, and wouldn't worry about it if I was you. You may lose a minute or two, but you'll get enough fitness back in a short amount of time to get through the swim without killing yourself.

Lately I've been struggling with general motivation with no racing and it being hot AF here right now. I've decided to just focus on running for the time being. It's going to take awhile to get my mileage back up so thought I would start supporting the running with some swimming (in addition to 2-3 1hr bike rides a week). I'm planning on just 2x per week of no more than 2k per swim. Just easy yards. You might think of doing similar unless it's a true pain in the ass to get to the pool. I'm lucky in that I have a free pool that's a half mile away, so no excuses.

I'm with you... haven't swam since March, have OWS options but don't feel like it, assume that races will be cancelled, etc. I actually like (or liked) swimming, but now that I haven't done it in a while it feels like too much logistics and hassle to coordinate.

If I were to get back in the pool I'd just ignore performance metrics and just try to swim frequently and consistently and consistently frequently, just doing good 50s (whatever the times) and getting back into it. Maybe start off with some 30 or even 20 minute sessions and work back up to an hour over a couple of weeks. Like Monty and Thailand said, just do it for the fun and fitness and health benefits and eventually you'll get there.

A year from now you'll wish you would have started today.

Eric

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Same speed range.
Can't stand swimming. Swim start for the season each year is either January or April until the end of June. Through the summer swim in races only with an occasional OWS. Better things to do throughout the summer than be stuck in a pool. I find it takes about 3 weeks to be at 90% and 6 weeks to be mostly normal. 10 weeks at peak then my interest wanes and I slow down from there.

+ what he said. I guess if access were easier (walking distance or in my back garden) then I'd swim more, but struggling as I do to fit things in around family and life in general, the swim is the first to go. 3 months out from a race and I'll get back into it which is usually good enough for a 1:07 ish full distance swim. For context, when I first get back in I'm struggling to hold 2 mins for 400m!

If its as hot AF wouldn't swimming be better than running m

Yes but I don't like swimming and I love running. I love cycling more, but the time requirements in the heat for running are much less than cycling.

I think it’s fine to forget the swim. You don’t put enough time in it to get better anyway, might as well focus on bike/run. If you start swimming 10-12wks before your next competition you’ll be back near your best by race day, and your bike and run might be better because you did more if that in the meantime.

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Swimming I think would came back quicker because its so technique based. I took a couple seasons off from tri a few years back. I think I went ~32 months without a single swim. Was a 20:XX oly swimmer before (20:15 PR maybe?) the break, got back in the pool a few Aprils later, broke 21 my second tri back in June. Probably different for everyone but I'm guessing majority of people are being held back more by stroke and technique than fitness anyway so it'll snap back pretty good for a lot of people.

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