Here's my story...

Once upon a time I was a swimmer. Senior year of HS I had arthroscopic shoulder surgery for a slight labrum tear. After Freshman year of college (1994) I had Bankart surgery. Back then it was very invasive, big ass scar on left shoulder. That said.. I'm slow as dirt in the water.

Leading up to IMMT 2016 I started training in the winter, got hurt with a fall (cracked some ribs), decided not to do the race, took a break from training, decided to do the race after peer pressure, started training again and did the race not very well prepared.

From 01/01/2016 to 08/20/2016 - I swam 23 times.
I did not swim from April 1st to July 22.
I swam greater than 3,000 yards only 3 times

I swam the 2.4 miles in 1:30:12. Cold, rainy, windy and the last half was very choppy.. like ocean swell choppy.

It's such a small portion of a full day. You have to ask yourself, "do I want to race, or do I want to finish?"

Whatever you decide, good luck with the injury!

Not sure how limited this would be considered but ~13-14K / mo avg for 4 months leading up to Lake Placid this year, swam ~1:10. Swam through high school so have somewhat of a swim background. Upper body / torso cramped like a motha early on the bike though... almost crashed when my abs, obliques and lats seized up as I twisted slightly to throw a bottle in the BTS cage.

Good luck with the injury, that's a whole different ball game.

I have a torn anterior labrum and AC joint separation. I have been dealing with it for about 3 years now and have not had the surgery to correct it..nor do I plan on doing so. I have had surgeons tell me to fix it. I have had physical therapists and sports doctors tell me that the best decision I could have made was to not fix it...that outcomes are worse for active people.

I swim 1x per week and any extra swimming is when I have races.

I use swim bands almost every day.

I have no swimming background.

You don't have to swim a lot...just enough,

I raced IM Frankfurt this year. Had a 10 hours per week training plan which turned out to be one hour swim per week in avg. Worked fine. Typically, I went once a week and swam between 2.5 and 4km. Added a few open water swims in the last weeks before the race. So, I have not been physically limited, but time budget wise. Resulted in solid 54 min. swim at IM Frankfurt. Noticeably slower than some years ago with more time in the water, but still ok.

Prep for Challenge Roth last year has been about the same and was solid as well. Overall I ended up with ~110km swim in the 6 months prior to the Ironman race.

My recommendation: Go regularly if possible, go fresh (!), do a good portion of speed training combined with some longer, steady-pacing parts. E.g. warm-up, 4*4*50, 2*800, cool-down.

For many years I got by in IMs with an annual total of 75,000 yards or less of swimming. I had a crazy work schedule with a lot of traveling that made it difficult to get to the pool. I now have a new career with a lot more free time so have started swimming much more frequently and didn't notice a significant change in my IM swim times, even with masters swim workouts and coaching introduced into my swim training. This year I'm on pace to hit about 300,000 yards of swimming for the year, but my IM and HIM swim times have been about the same as they were when my volume was much lower. I don't come from any sort of competitive swimming background.

You will be fine.

It already sounds like you are prepared to adjust your expectations and deal with a level of discomfort. That's much of the mental side taken care of.

Physically, with 8 IM and years of consistent swim mileage, your body isn't going to forget how to swim. Assuming relatively comparable swim conditions to Texas, you may well be under 1:10.

I have gone a full year between IM races without a single pool session, and with just one sprint, one half IM and maybe an ocean swim as my total training. Pretty easy to wing it if the base is there.

IMTX 2016 with about 2 weeks of swimming, every day before the race, swam 1:05 which is 5-7 mins slower than with high volume training. So in the greater scheme of things, not a big deal. Plus Cozumel is downstream these days.

---

____________________________________

Are you ready to do an Ultraman? | How I calculate Ironman race fueling | Strength Training for Athletes |

 
You'll be fine.

I refuse to swim in a pool, sends me crazy. Started my IM training 28th of Dec with a sprint race (ocean swim), swam once per week there after in the lake. Swam 1:06 for IMNZ early March.

Seriously if it's a toss up between 3 mornings a week in the pool, or $30 on latex tubes, I'm laying in bed ....shopping online for those tubes.

---

http://www.sweat7.com
Facebook Page: Sweat7
Twitter: @sweat7coaching

Yep, you'll be fine.

Expect to add 5-10 minutes to your time, then crush the bike.

Got some good news and some bad news. Good news is, you can actually get quicker, bad news is, it involves a lot of kicking! I had 6 months of no swimming due to a shoulder injury, I had cortisone, but it just would get worse if I tried to swim, so I just kicked for 6 months. Freestyle kick fly kick, with fins, without fins, with kb, without kb, lots of kicking. I'm an OK swimmer, 27m 70.3, but I have a shit kick. It was 3mins/100m, I got this down to under 2min. Nothing to write home about, but a significant improvement. Anyway when I returned to swimming, I did a 1km TT and went 14.20. 8 months prior I'd gone 13.59. So a 21s discrepancy after 6 months of no swimming is f**k all! And I could have quicker, but I was holding back because of my shoulder. So arguably I was no slower. A young kid in our squad did a similar thing, out for 3 months, only kicked and came back quicker.

There are other drills you can do too, I'd stick my fins on and do underwater swimming, help improve my breathholds. Not actually sure how/if it improved my swimming, but I went from around 30m underwater to around 75m underwater. Definitely helped with things like tumble turns and changing breathing patterns. I can do a 4/4/2 pattern now. It added variety to my workouts.

And if you can still swim, modify your swimming to protect your joint i.e pull buoy, core shorts, snorkel, splay your fingers to reduce the strain on your shoulder etc Also work on your drills and do them so you can an aerobic workout too e.g most peeps do the 6/16 drill with fins, ditch the fins.

Don't most people on here do ironman on limited swim training?

This KIWI...

So odd to have a 3 page discussion going about death in triathlon related to swimming AND have a question about how little one could do to "get by" (albeit injury related) and completely agree with the kicking encouragement! Go kick yourself into shape and you still have to deal with the aquatic environment from an emotional and physical perspective.

good luck! (to op)
daved

Hey daved...thanks for the good luck!.....and normally i would agree to your first point. In retrospect, my original post should probably be re-worded. My intent was to get feedback on anyone that has done multiple IMs w/ one being with limited swim training, and the impact it had compared to the others. Based on my stated experience, I'm not worried about "getting by", "surviving" the swim, or overcoming emotional or the physicality of the swim. Just wanted to clarify for future readers.

The kicking is a good suggestion....at least it'll keep me in the pool and doing something other than run/bike.

haha so true

So, just another comment, if I get your question right, then my short answer would be:
Reasonable swim training (2~4* per week): 49min.
Limited swim training (1* per week): 54min.
So, slowing down by 10%. 5 min. might not be a lot, but can a) change the race dynamics and b) make the difference between KQ or not KQ...

Had to take some time off swimming for Boulder 2015. All other sports were not affected, but typically a 1:10 IM swimmer and Boulder was 1:26.
Intermediate weeks off for 2 to 3 weeks, 10k at most when I was swimming. It was a hodge podge and not a fun swim, but I did it in plenty of time.
It wasn't an injury, just pool access limitations.

Depends on how much volume you are doing now compared to 12k-15k. I would think if you hit at least 7k-9k you could maintain and with a 1:05 IM swim time in your pocket, shouldn't be a problem.

---

Ryan
http://www.SetThePaceTriathlon.com
http://www.TriathlonTrainingDaddy.com
I got plans - https://www.trainingpeaks.com/...dotcom#trainingplans

I swam growing up/college. I did a half with no swimming the year before hand. I finished around 10-12min slower than what I did while training. It hurt though, just generally much more tired. Something else that was pretty interesting was that my neck/upper back muscles were VERY sore (breathing/sighting).

In general, I think if i had swam 1X per week for an hour for like 2 months before the half I would have been fine. (not sure if this would qualify as "limited").

Of course, you would never do such minimal training on the bike or run now would you??? The iron distance, and its various multiples (1/2, double, triple, etc), are very uneven races. Having first seen the Ironman on TV back around 1982, and having done tri since '86, i am fully aware of the history of the sport, of the fact that the iron distance simply came from a bar bet, and of the fact that most non-swimmers already think 2.4 miles is a really long swim; still, for experienced tri people and for swimmers, the swim requires minimal training compared to the B and R. Understand that making the swim longer might drive people away but still it seems absurd that the swim is only roughly 10% of the race for most people. Of course, it's all about the market, and the few equilateral dist races that have occurred over the years do not bring out large numbers of entries; still, it just seems odd to have a market-based sport.

---

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

That's interesting. Beginning my triathlon journey last summer, and at age 40 having never swam one stroke in all my life, 90% of my focus was on the swim

I finally did my 1st HIM in May and the only workouts that I stressed out over missing or potentially missing in the future was the swim. This is also including the fact that I had never owned a bike until April of last year.

I'm also training for my 1st full IM in Sept. Two weeks ago, I was only able to swim 3500 yards due to lightening keeping the pool closed. I was completely freaked out thinking I would lose all my fitness.

Well, I was a little tired, but survived my typical 11,000 yard week the following week.

It was during that time I realized I am putting way to much focus on the swim. Lightening has me to only 6500 yards this week and I am not worried anymore... Although hopefully, there is no long term loss in fitness... Ok, maybe I'm a little worried :)

You understand my point though, right??? IOW, a semi-competent swimmer can totally neglect swim training, and still make it through the iron swim b/c a 2.4 mi swim is roughly analogous to about a 9.6 mi run, or just over 1/3 of a mary. The swim is just ludicrously short compared to the run, and perhaps even more so compared to the bike.

I predict that once you get your swim down in another year or so, you too will cut back to just swimming once a week, or maybe even just during races. :)

---

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

Yes, I totally get your point! And, I was glad to see that you posted it since it lined up with what I accidentally learned. I had thought 80% of my focus should be on the swim. But, I realized that I was putting way too much focus on the swim. Since I am a noob and dont know what I am doing really, I just wasnt sure if my assessment had merit until I read your post that backed it up.

As you can see, so far you're the only person to reply to my post, prob b/c we've debated making the iron swim longer ad infinitum, ad absurdem, ad nauseum here on ST, and hence most of the "old hands" just don't even bother responding anymore. Dev Paul might respond if he sees my post, since he has become a real swimmer in last 2 yrs due to bike crash injuries that made cycling and running not feasible to do.

---

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

Especially with a wetsuit swim in good conditions. Totally agree re swim length. 1 hour vs 5 hours on the bike. Being a good swimmer is almost irrelevant. IM swim should be 10km.

One thing to consider is that if I didn't swim heaps I'd probably only go 1 or 2 mins slower, but swimming lots means I'm running up the beach and out of T1 still breathing easy.

Well, I can give you a few examples though I'm nowhere near as good of a swimmer as you are. My times when doing legit swim training was 34 minutes for a half and 1:26 for a full (swimming at a relaxed pace). I did the same full 3 years later with literally only 3 practice swims. 3. My time was utterly pathetic - 1:40 (swam at a relaxed pace) but I did it on a 3 year layoff with no swimming at all. 3 years after that, I'm doing another full. I've got about 12 practice swims in this time and l did a 1:35 yesterday in jammers at a relaxed pace. So I lost 9 minutes but gained a whole bunch of personal time back and I didn't have to pay for a pool membership. For me, that's the sweet spot. Anyways, I wouldn't worry about it. You're fine. Maybe you'll lose 10 minutes at most.