I can't offer anything except that swimming every day seems a little ambitious for someone who hasn't swam since mid march.....even then you weren't doing much volume.

I'm in the same situation....will be by a lake for the entire month of August and sure swimming everyday sounded good until I really gave it some thought and I worry my shoulders will get killed within the first 3-4 days. I may swim every other day at first until my body confirms I'm good to increase the frequency.

A month? In Vermont? Summer? Small Cabin? Get a gravel bike, enjoy all of the sweet, quiet Vermont gravel, drink beer and enjoy some T3.

I don’t really have any advise for lake training, other than swim early while the lake is still glass, and there aren’t any boats (if it is a boat lake). On my lake, swimming after 8:00am is crazy due to jet skis, wake boats and sight seers in pontoons - especially on weekends.

Yeah, I got a gravel bike lined up ... but we have to quarantine for awhile. But I can't wait to ride. This place is all gravel roads for days.

Guess I will swim what I can. Thanks!

If your arms and shoulders feel fine, I would think that 15-20 minutes a day in addition to running/biking would be great for the first week. Then see where you want to go from there.

If you're worried about too much stress on shoulders from daily swimming for a month, then maybe get some swim fins and use kicking more for propulsion on days where you want to take it easier on your upper body?

If you want to do workouts, then something fartlek-oriented seems like the way to go... I think this has been mentioned recently in other OWS threads.

Edit: you can also *try* to work on your form if you are pretty self-aware about body position and your weaknesses, but this can be quite hard to self-assess. To make it easier, you could try very deliberately modifying only one thing at a time for a specific leg of distance on the lake, a few times a week, to see what makes you faster and what doesn't. If this sort of experimental tweaking and self-analysis appeals to you, a month in the same environment is a great opportunity! And it's much easier when you're swimming more often at a place with low time costs to swimming, because then you can do a little warmup, do your test repeat, cooldown, and not need to feel like you need to justify your one day at the pool with an exhausting main set.

I dont mean to be all zen like, but I might end up there.
I would not worry about any training plan. I am not a great swimmer, but we live on a lake so I swim often. For me open water is kind of my mediation. No phones, no screens, no cars, no target pace or watts. Sometime I push, other times I just put one hand in front of the other, but almost every time I get a lot of thinking in. It kind of became a joke at work, I would come in and tell my team I had an idea for this or that, (not saying many of them are good) and it would almost always start "today when I was swimming" One time my boss came to me with an issue we were having and said "so if you could go home and swim that one out and come back with some options that would be great"

My wife and I did this last summer, we each got an orange swim buoy and swam from the dock along the no wake buoys that are about 100 yards apart and run for about half a mile. This past weekend we bought a kayak and now take turns with one person swimming while the other spots. It got crazy even in the early morning with bass boats flying around trying to get out and to a spot and the bigger boats come up as close as possible at high speeds with no regard for the no wake zone just to show off. Better to be safe out there. We took the opportunity to swim 4 days a week slowly building starting with 15 minutes out and 15 back, kayak person would signal time to turn around and then 20 out 20 back with a long swim on Sunday morning of 60 total minutes. During the MWF swim, we would warm up for the first 500 yds and when the Garmin buzzed, do the next 500 at a faster pace, recover and so on. You can set your Garmin to buzz at certain distances for intervals and set high and low strokes per minute. Have fun, love Veeermont in the summer.

short and easy each day.

All great stuff, folks. I will back down a bit based on these suggestions. I’ve got fins, which help me modulate. I knocked out 2500m today for my third day in a row. I’ll get up to 3000-3500 in a week or so and see how it feels.

And although I don’t swim a ton, I’ve always had the ability to ramp up whether bike, swim or run.

So I’ll probably take the advise and just cruise, work on different positions/techniques, take some days off for running and gravel biking, and enjoy some more of these Vermont beers.

It’s good stuff — got my 10-year-old out for a nice swim out to a floating dock for some cannonballs. He has a wetsuit/fins like mine and looked great swimming open water.

What is the temperature of the lake and what's the temperature you usually swim in? I can swim 2 - 3x of without getting more fatigued in winter compared to summer.

Good thought, I don’t know exact temp, but while it’s not cold enough for therapy, it’s kinda perfect for swimming ... I use the wetsuit for buoyancy and it’s comfortable. Yet I will probably start going with the swimskin once I get stronger and the air heats up.

I’m comfortably fatigued this morning after three days of swimming so I’ll just run only today. Nice gravel roads for running. Our water pump broke last night, meaning I’ll use the lake for bathing today!

I was gonna say "early & often" but yours is good too

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I would start doing band workouts asap if you are not swimming where you are. If you swim in a lake in VT every day the probability of duck itch is pretty high so just make sure to dry yourself aggressively after each swim. I swim in NH and I usually unfortunately get it once a year. Its not necessarily near shore as many say, its just out there suspended in the water column.

Don't know about "duck itch" but thanks for the tip. I am at Maidstone Lake, which is apparently quite clean. I will take the towel advise. Plus, I had been doing band workouts a few times a week since the lockdown; perhaps that has helped with my quick return to swimming.

Don't want to be alarmist, it may never happen. Water cleanliness has little to do with it, its a parasite that occurs around here. Its also called swimmers itch. Its a rash that goes away after 3-5 days. Just dry yourself aggressively and you will probably be OK.