Based on that, my guess would be that your "race form" is you under-recovered. You took some time off and your "out of shape" is rested and you are able to express some of the fitness you built up on the road to being under-recovered.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

I agree. It registers with this life-long swimmer :) In my younger days the 500, 1,000, and 1,650 were my events. My stroke technique is different between doing a long set versus doing 10 x 100s.

I like doing long sets - and will always begin day 1 of my training week doing longer sets: 3 x 1,000s or 1,500, 1000, and 500. When I do these I am ALWAYs thinking about my technique. Some of these longer swims I will do drills every other 100, or use a pull buoy, add drag, or wear fist gloves. My last day of the week will almost always consist of shorter intervals. 5 x 200s, 10 x 100s, 10 x 50s. I do know that my swimming times wont improve unless I do these types of shorter intervals.

I think being self coached you have to find the balance of the training that you like to do versus the training you need to do. I have found a workout pattern that works for me!

I've been doing continuous swims in my workouts for the last couple of months and have had the same experience as you. I swim 3 x 20 minutes non-stop and the fact I don't have to count laps or worry about intensity means I can focus purely on the feel of the water as I swim. I think most people can swim 20 minutes before the dreaded "breakdown of form" that we're all warned about, and if you can't, well then what will you do on race day (assuming you are racing longer than Sprint distance)?

I have done long continuous swims many times and am fairly certain that the improvement I have seen in my 500, 1000, and 1650 times was due in large part to these workouts. However, the caveat to this is that I did NOT simply swim without watching the clock but rather I would watch the clock like a hawk with the intent of swimming each 500 faster than the last one, gradually building up to a max effort for the last 500. I always go out easy, using the first 500 as a warmup, then descending my 500s from there. I've done this for distances of 3000 up to 12,000 but most commonly in the 4000-5500 range. I believe that, if you can descend a 5000 swim by 500s, you are more than ready for the iron swim.

Many STers seem to think that a long continuous swim means not having to watch the clock, but basically this means missing out on a great opportunity to learn to pace yourself in longer swims.

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

I'll swim with bad form. The idea is to ingrain good form, rather than bad, in muscle memory, and you spend a lot of time swimming in training (as opposed to racing).
+ the wetsuit always helps, when you wear it.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

I agree that the aim is to ingrain good form, but it has to be contextual and event-specific as well. Being able to maintain good form in the pool for a 20 minute swim is, I would argue, a fairly minimal requirement if you expect to be able to hold good form for 60-70 minutes on race day. I find that swimming mindfully for 20 minutes, without worrying about pace or time helps me to dial in my form, so that during the last five minutes I am smoother and more economical than during the first 5 minutes. If form is breaking down, I agree that stopping, resting, and resetting is the best option.

Do you think the pace that you swim at changes your technique?

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

Yes, definitely. Above a certain pace I can feel things breaking down in my stroke.

Without a doubt when you go above threshold for too long the stroke will have a tendency to break down. But at that point there is an opportunity to build the most important skill you can build in swimming and where the majority of the gains come from. It is the skill of retaining focus on your stroke even as the levels of stress get higher and higher.

Also, the flip side to the stroke breaking down at faster pacing is the stroke is less focused and more inefficient at slower pacing. What type of technique are you ingraining in your 20 minute straight swim?

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

The main goal (in terms of technique) of the 20 minute mindful swim is to move as smoothly as possible through the water, keeping my heart rate down as low as I can and relaxing as many muscles as I can. Throughout the swim I'll try to zone in on just one aspect of my stroke at a time: like kick timing, keeping my elbow high, maintaining good body position, relaxing my breathing (etc.). The greater goal of the extended swim for me is the relaxing and therapeutic nature of moving through the water mindfully. It's more a form of meditation and stress-release than a "workout". As soon as the lake warms up (usually May) I do even longer steady-state swims - building up to 90 minutes of continuous calm swimming.

Sounds good. That is a very pleasant way to spend your time. But if we are speaking specifically about gaining performance improvements in the swim, it isn't the most effective way to spend your time.

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

The point I'm making is not just about "performance improvements on the swim", rather "performance improvements for Ironman training and racing". I think there are too many variables for anyone to be able to talk about "the most effective way to spend your time", because it depends on your current context and future goals. I swam with a master's swim squad for a couple of years and went 1:10 for my Ironman swim. I swam on my own for a while after that, focusing on relaxation, comfort, low heart rate (etc.) and swam 1:08 for my next Ironman swim. More importantly, I saved 30 minutes on the bike/run after the 1:08 swim.

"The most effective use of time" depends so much on one's individual situation that anyone who thinks they know "the most effective use of (someone else's) time" is really just kidding themselves. For me (and I would imagine there are others out there in similar situations) reducing stress, increasing comfort-level, improving recovery, and ensuring freshness when you mount your bike on race day are higher-level priorities to address.

If you're making the argument that straight, continuous swimming is the most effective way to train for an Ironman, you're wrong. It doesn't matter the person or their situation. If you think using time is the best metric for judging improvement in open water swimming or triathlon for that matter, you're really wrong.

There's a great book that was published not too long ago. It's called the Death of Expertise. It's about how a lot of people have come to think, due to the amount of information available on the Internet, that all opinions about a given subject are now equal. They aren't. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm not trolling you. I'm not getting personal. But there is a wide difference between knowledge and expertise.

I wish you all the best with your training and racing. I cheer for everyone who takes on the challenge of the sport of triathlon.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

Well I don't really know what to say to this other than we'll just have to agree to disagree. When I do a race, time is the only metric that matters because that's how they decide our placings. When I'm doing a race my goal is to get to the finish line in as short a time as possible, I'm not sure what other metric there could be that you think is more important on race day.

When you are trying to compare races to judge whether or not you are improving or not, there's no way to normalize time for the difference in course or conditions. If you think a 1:08 at IM Chattanooga is the same thing as a 1:08 at IM South Africa, then we will agree to disagree. Time doesn't have much value as a metric to judge improvement in triathlon. The best metrics are usually your time behind the first place person (only if the field is large enough) since place is what drives most of success in triathlon or your percent place in the overall field.

I hope this helps.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

Is there any love for hard-easy continuous swimming, similar to track workouts running? I do this a lot. Hard down, easy back. Hard 100’s with easy 50 recovery. Hard 500’s with 200 recovery…etc. I’m old, not concerned with improving, since that ship sailed a long time ago. I swim a continuous hour every other day, and go by feel. I do a lot of intervals, but recover with easy swimming, and rarely if ever stop, until my hour is up.

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Athlinks / Strava

You'll typically see more shoulder injuries that way. There is a lot of benefit in the stop on the wall. Physically and mentally.

Tim

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

I understand your point and agree that it can be hard to compare swim times between different races. However, both my swims were Ironman Canada - in different lakes, but with very similar conditions. First race finished 28th in AG/243rd OA, second race finished 15th AG/120th OA. From my results it's clear that switching from purely swimming intervals with the local masters swim club to more emphasis on mindful swimming helped my race day performance. It helped me stay healthy and injury-free during training. It helped me feel fresher when getting on the bike. It helped me with race day pacing. It helped me with my endurance at race-pace. I submit that all of those things are (to answer the OP's question) "benefits of long swimming sessions/sets".

I think the disconnect here is in how we are interpreting the OP's question ("are there any benefits to long swimming sets?"). Long swim sets are a great way to recover from hard runs, for example. So the benefit of the long, calm swim set is not necessarily in making you a faster swimmer but in making you a faster triathlete, since it allows you to run hard and stay injury-free, so you can train more consistently and improve more. You imply that intervals are the most effective and efficient way to train for everybody. I disagree with you. This isn't about expertise v. knowledge or the relativity of truth, it's a statement grounded in appreciation of different contexts. I know there is at least one situation (mine) where the inclusion of longer sets (like the 20 minute mindful swim for example, which I do as part of a recovery swim every couple of weeks or so, the day after my biggest bike/run day) is objectively more efficient and more effective than only doing interval-based training.

Just me, but mentally is one of the main reasons I went to continuous. Stopping, starting, gabbing, stalling, lack of discipline in timing rests, total time spent at the pool, making excuses for calling it a day, whatever. These days, I get in and get it done, and that works much better with my psyche. As for shoulders, it’s never been an issue. But I also spend an equal time in the gym, as I do swimming, so I’m sure that helps.

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Athlinks / Strava

Yes, yes, yes. I am fartleking in the pool all the time and watching the wall clock. Today’s continuous swim was 2000yd with the first half on 1:25/100 flowing right into part 2 at 1:19/100. Hit the wall like clock work…theoretically 2000 time was 27:20, finished it in 27:23.

It seems to me the fact that you were left drained, rather than demonstrating the superiority of continuos long swims, could simply indicate that you were not doing interval training properly. Maybe you were doing them too fast, with too little rest, or something else.

I’m certainly no expert, but my sense is that the swim coaches here could give you a training plan that would be interval based and make you faster than the continuous swimming does.

If someone says that they simply enjoy continuous swimming more, than there is nothing to dispute. Do what makes you happy. It will probably make you faster too, since you’ll do what you enjoy more frequently.

But I’m very dubious about the assertions that a training program involving a heavy dose of continuous swimming will lead to better fitness and form. Swimming is technique based, improving technique requires repeating good form, and form deteriorates the longer we swim. The deterioration is probably less and slower for better swimmers, but it gets us all. So practicing through long swims is at some level practicing bad technique.

I don’t think anyone here is advocating all long swims. But there are definitely people advocating all short intervals with complete exclusion of long swims.

One of my favorite sets. Today was 7x100 (LCM) on a descending interval, dropping from 2:00/100 down to 1:30/100, *holding best average*. I held 1:29 for all seven, so I made the last interval. I've done 100s SCY starting at 1:30/100 and dropping :01/100 (it takes some thought to do that!) until you can't make the interval. You gotta push all the intervals, else you go too easy for the first few. As you said, the point is to focus on "holding your stroke" as it gets harder and harder.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I’m writing as a life long swimmer so maybe the taxing nature of a longish continuous swim is not the same as for others.

When training for a half or longer I’ll do intervals during the week but after my Sunday long run I usually do a 1500-2000 long continuous swim. I get a recovery benefit but also it does (for me) allow me to get used to just going for that long as I usually focus on 100s and 200s during training. It’s prob more of a mental then a physical benefit.