Not me, a teammate

Started at 27 or 28. He's early 30's now.

May 2016 did 26.2 for 50!free, 58 mid for 100 free , 2:11 ish for the 200, sub 5 for the 400. Forget the 800 and 1500 times now. All times SCM . At that point he had been swimming with masters for about 4 years

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I first got in the pool about 4 years ago in hopes of doing my first tri. Ended up getting discouraged quickly after a few weeks and switched to focus on my running. Then I signed up for a 70.3 and got to work in Oct 2016. I was putting way too much effort into swimming 50 SCY and my 100yard time was in the mid 1:50's. Now I'm swimming a cruising pace in the 1:30s for 100yd with a pb of 1:24. This has been done with 3 swims per week, sometimes 4. Still have a lot of work to do, but it was encouraging seeing those times drop over the past few months.

Started at 35 and have been swimming for 15 years. I got to my fastest in about 7 years and then have been about the same speed since then. It makes sense for me since I really haven't been swimming any more since then either.

In swim meets I've gone as fast as 1:06 for 100 SCY, 1:13 for SCM

Edit: I normally bring 100's in at practice somewhere between 1:20 and 1:30 SCY depending on what I'm doing.

I started swimming with my first Sprint tri in 1993 at age 31. I took swim lessons as a kid but just enough to swim to the dock in the lake.

Currently, I average 2:05-2:10 in a 25y pool. If I work really, hard, I can push out a 1:55 100y. Yes, I suck. That's why I prefer duathlons :-).

I'm interested to see the responses to this thread - I feel like I'm in the process of plateauing and would like to see some success stories of AOSs swimming 1:10s and lower after a few years of training!



When did you start?
22ish, swam for a year or two (inconsistently) and then took 6 years off and started all over again at 30.

How fast have you become? (All SCY)
Cruise at 1:30
Moderate effort at 1:25ish
Hard efforts down at 1:20ish
Sprints and max effort around 1:16-1:18

How long did it take you to get where you are now?
Started training again consistently back in August/September of last year. Just getting back to similar times as my 24-year-old self.

I started back in 2013 when I was 33. I couldn't do 2 lengths of a 25m pool without stopping so I had some 1-2-1 coaching.

I can now do 5:51 400 SCM. Sub 20 min 1500 OW.

I had no swimming background at all, other than when I was kids I was taught the basics and how not to drown. I have become faster than some people who have swam for longer, but that is partly down to having a natural swimmers body (6'5'' tall, 6'8'' arm span).

Started swimming in 2010 at age 25 when started training for triathlon.

Fasted 100 SCY is 1:06 and change a few weeks ago. Will usually come in at 1:17-18 on sets of 100s with 15 rest.

Took me since 2010 to get here and still working!

But don't get discouraged. Just like anything new, it takes time and effort to get better. Just keep plugging away!

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I don't know if I even qualify to be an AOS, because I rarely swim :) Anyway - I started tri's three years ago and had not been to the pool for ten years. I never swam as a kid, except for the kind of swimming we did in school (which is closer to taking a bath than swimming).

My swimming happens the last 1-2 months before Tri-season every year. Last year I totaled about 25 000m for the year :) So far this year I'm at 4200 m :|

When I first started out I would be swimming around 2:00 pr 100m SCM, and be able to hold that pretty steady. Three years in with way to little swimming I start the season by swimming some 200/400m repeats at around 1:40/1:45 pr 100 - LCM. (and that pace is where I am at now). Last year, after a short swim-period, I maxed out at 6:05 for 400 LCM, but so that around 1:40pr 100 LCM was my "steady" pace in the pool. I find very little speed advancing from "steady" to "hard" swimming.. a 1:40 100m LCM feels quite leisurely, but a 1:30 feels close to max. I could probably sprint a 1:20 LCM fully rested (start with kick of wall), but no faster. PR for IM swim (wetsuit) 1:02 last year. Fastest HIM swim just over 30min. Open water is same feeling as pool - I can go pretty comfy around 1:40 give or take a few sec, but I cant for the life of me speed up more without sprinting and dying in 100m.

Hopefully I'll get to this level or a tiny bit faster this year.

No, you didn't start too late. Just swim, a lot, consistently, over an extended period of time.

IMO 100 yd/m time has no translation to triathlon swimming (non-pool) for adult onset swimmers. I am SLOW in a pool, and was last out of the water in my first triathlon. However over the past 36 years (started swimming and triathlons at 21) I have become pretty competitive including several FOTW (1st out of the water) award at several IM races. I don't do masters, don't flip turn, don't do (traditional) intervals, etc . . . just swim. Consistent execution over time produces positive results.

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David
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I learned to swim as a kid, but I was never on any kind of team or had any reason to swim laps, just playing around in lakes and such but I was confident in the water.

When I started swimming for triathlons, I was shocked at how slow I was. I hadn't swam in a few years, and I started out around 3 min for 100 yds. After about 6 years of working on it, including individual coaches and a couple of swim clinics, I can break 2:00 for 100 yds on a good day. I am 44, and I have come to the conclusion that I will never be fast, and the best I can do is be consistent. I am naturally fast on the bike, so my goal in races is to just get through the swim without exhausting myself then try to make up for it on the bike.

So you are doing 01:28/100m pace in a 25m pool for 400 meters?
and 01:20/100m for 1500 meters in the open water?
Are you that faster in open water?

I started at 29 but didn't get coaching until last year which jumped my speed up significantly. I was about 2:00-2:05/100m and now I am at about 1:40-1:45/100m (all out 100m is 1:23) and I am hoping more improvement can be worked on. The only advantage I have had over other AOS I know is that I have an absolute comfort with open water thanks to growing up on an island.

I'd like to think that if i had done the coaching from the start I'd be a lot faster but I actually think I'd only be marginally faster as it took the 2 years prior for me to work on conditioning and muscle memory with the general motions to be able to fine tune the stroke and gain speed via adjustments. I think most of the speed I gain from now will come from stopping the hand cross-over and further conditioning.

Given my age at the start, 28 is not too late. I would think most responses will say you are earlier than most?

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
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I've been swimming for about eight years now, starting at age 30. Before that I could swim to survive, but not much else.

I have two young kids, so getting to the pool is damn hard. Over the past year I've been able to get to the pool 1-2x a week. I know I could get faster with more volume, but that isn't happening unless we had a lap pool at our house, and my wife isn't going to let that happen!

All out SCY 100 is around 1:11-1:12 from a push, faster 100's around 1:20 and 100's on 15 or so seconds of rest around 1:23. Fastest SCY 200 is around 2:35.

Best 70.3 swim has been 31 minutes flat. This puts me in a decent position, as swimming is definitely my weakest leg.

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I stated swimming in 2012 to do my first sprint at age 28 (so not too late!). Previous swim experience was not drowning. At the time, I was thrilled to get under 2:00 for 100 SCY. My last 1000 SCY TT was 15:31 (1:33/100yd). 100yd repeat workouts are now ~1:25 w/ 15s rest. I haven't ever swam w/ the local masters since their schedule doesn't match up with mine at all or had a coach. I ran through Slowman's guppy challenge this spring and have taken off ~10s per 100 for hundred repeats and my 1k TT. Not sure if it's the specific drills he had us doing, higher yardage compared to the past or both.

Very interested in this thread. I started 2 years ago at 38 and couldn't freestyle across the pool, grew up spending summers in a lake but never learned to swim for distance.

Now for 100 SCM I am about:
1:50 best
1:58-2:00 hard
2:05-2:07 cruise

Swimming twice per week and would love to make the time to spend more time in the pool to see where I could get. Seems like I'm still improving but very very slowly.

Would love to someday get down to a comfortable 1:30 pace but that seems a really long way away. It's heartening to hear examples of people that have pulled it off, would be interesting to also hear their 5k/marathon times to get an idea of engine vs technique. I know swimming is very technique driven but I would geuss that two AOS's with similar techniques and skills but different VO2max would have very different swim times.

Are those swimming 1:10-1:30 100s also running 16-18 min 5ks and 3 hour marathons?

Good question. The 5:51 PB was a few months back, the 1500 was last week. I think as well that the 1500 course was short, possibly by 100-120m or so. I know I can break the 5:51 400m time in my current shape based on how I feel in training. I suspect its closer to 1:27/100m in the pool 1:24/100m OW.

Started serious swimming at age 57. Had never swum more than a few hundred yards at a time in the pool and had only a rudimentary freestyle. However I had always been comfortable in the water and spent lots of time playing in the surf and even did a little open water swimming doing the breaststroke. Decided I really liked swimming and that led me to triathlons. I'm now 63, my fastest 100 SCY is 1:20 (off the wall with open turns, can do flip turns but am not very good at them), hard intervals in a long set are usually 1:24-1:30, can cruise comfortably in the pool forever at 1:38-9 or so. Recently did a 600 yard pool leg of a triathlon at a 1:32 pace. Practice with a master's group and still making slow but steady progress. Nowhere near fast enough to consider going in a master's meet but have improved enough to do reasonably well in my age group in the swim leg of triathlons.

Started tri in 2009, at age 19 or so. Never swam a lap in my life prior to that, could barely breaststroke 100 yds let alone freestyle without stopping. Around 2:05 min per 100 scy once I could actually make it 100 straight haha.

I have never swam as much as I should to improve, get all my instruction from YouTube and these forums...I'm a 1 to 3 times a week swimmer but it's usually 2x per week, avg distance 1500y or so, longest sessions ever are 3k. I'm an adult onset everything (just soccer and golf in high school) and I just realize more race time gains by focusing on biking/running. Plus, I find swimming boring if I'm doing more than 2k yards, I like being outside running woth my dog or riding the bike way more. That being said, now I can cruise easy doing 100 repeats in the 1:35 range, low 1:30s if I'm trying to work myself a little more. my last 500 scy TT was 7:54. My 100 PR is 1:22. It's basically just been gradual improvement over the years. While my volume isn't a ton, I have been relatively consistent, getting my 1 to 2, maybe 3, swims in a week year round for basically all these years.

I race primarily sprint distances, with 1 oly or 70.3 per year peppered in. One of these winters Ill get the bug to swim 4x a week and try to elevate my baseline more, but for now I have enough work to do with biking and running that I still prefr to prioritize those.

Good thread.

LOL....I saw your question first and was going to answer, "I am way too slow"....and then I saw your handle LOL!!!

Started at 38 in March of 2016. By September I was doing 100s on the 1:30 and got bored and stopped swimming multiple times per week (also coincided with getting healthy enough to run a lot again, go figure).

If I had time to tri train, I might be in the pool more but leaving my front door to run is a lot likelier that planning out a whole trip to the pool.

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https://markmcdermott.substack.com

currently 32. started swimming at 24/25. first open water timed swim was 1500m (no wetsuit) in 32ish minutes. by 2013 my PBs were something like

(SCY)
100 - 55/56 from a push
500 - 5:35ish
2000 - 24:00 or just under

Triathlon race time "PBs" are completely useless so I won't list those.

That was achieved through a combination of good kinesthetic awareness and consistent swimming for a few years (4 swims a week, 4k per swim, week after week, month after month, year after year...).

I am not faster than I was in 2013, but in certain ways I think I am "better." My stroke is cleaner, my understanding of a race dynamic has improved, my ability to sight cleanly and handle a variety of swim situations is better... All of that just comes with experience and there is no substitute.

I learned to swim at 5, swam in high school, and then in the Navy (but CSS isn't really swimming :)

I taught my wife to swim in 2011. She was 50. By that I mean I literally taught her everything - she had no background in swimming, didn't even learn as a child to dog paddle. Married 30 years (at the time) and it had never occurred to me why she never went in the water at parties or the beach. Things you lean

Last year she completed her first Ironman swim at Wilmington in 1:28:10. Considering 5 years ago she couldn't make it 20 feet in the college pool I call that a major win :)

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

Started swimming at 39, 42 now. Looking back at 2015 Garmin files I was averaging 1:50 per 100 scy in the pool. I know my first Sprint triathlon was a 1/4 mile swim and I used every stroke and float I know to get through it. Now my best 50 scy is 28 seconds pushing off the wall, 100 scy is 1:06. I do flip on the turns. I can hold under 1:20 for ten 100scy on 10 seconds rest but I don't know what that actually means. My 70.3 times are typically 31-33 minutes in lakes. St. Anthonys was shortened to 900 yards this year but I averaged 1:18 p/100. My only full swim was IMFL ocean swim at 1:06. Hoping to hit the 60 minute mark this year at IMFL.

I did Masters Swim for a year last year but recently stopped and joined the Y for the family plan. I am hoping I don't lose my swimming abilities now because it is a lot harder to swim alone instead of the other Masters swimmers going hard around me. 3000 yards at Masters swim went by a lot faster and easier than 1500 yards by myself.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

Pretty much my numbers as well. Started late 30's, now 42. Thinking of getting a coach on deck at some point. I've tried every drill in the book and my form still stinks.