More yards, better stroke technique, better turns, more quality/speed work and less junk yards. Work on body position, catch, kick (yes, it matters for triathletes). Increase your frequency (swim more often).

Sounds like you need a coach or a masters' team for ongoing feedback. Coaching can't be overemphasized in swimming. It's just more technical than running or cycling.

Or buy a white speedo and swim when lots of women are around. You'll be motivated to get out of the pool in a hurry.

I cannot comment on technique. What is your time for a 500yd? Is it less than 2x your 1000yd? If so, you have the speed just not the endurance. If not, you need speed. Your 1000yd pace is 1:30/100. Try and do 10 x 100 leaving on 1:30, if that is too easy do then on 1:25. Pick a goal pace and do repeats on that time. If you want to get down to 14:00 do 100 repeats on 1:25 and your 200s on 2:50 and so on.

andrew

See Marlin's post above and do it. However, how old are you? Do you have any old injuries? What is your best 100 time off the blocks? You may need to work more on speed than you are doing now. You may need more short intervals. I don't know because you told us just enough for us to look like idiots for replying. But...we ARE such gullible and helpful souls.... :),

Anyway, your times aren't so slow for a triathlete. You'll beat 90% of the guys with those times.

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

I'm going on 30,and no injuries. My best 500 time is 6:55, but it hurt really bad. I haven't done a 100 for time in a while but reckon' it's just under 1:10.

I've been doing the masters but I don't seem to get much technique critique unless I ask for it. Maybe I need to find another masters group?

Also, what breathing pattern do most good swimmers use? I find when I get tired I want to breath every 2nd stroke, but I'm thinking that slows me down and I should breath every 3rd stroke minimum? Thanks

Luntzy: 1:10 off the blocks for 100 yards for a 30 year old is a little slow for a swimmer, but not really atypical or terrible for a triathlete. You sound like a slowtwitch guy for sure. :), Anyway, Marlin's advice is very good but to implement it properly you need a swim coach. A pretty good one too. Do you have a USAS swim team in your area? If so, go watch their practices and listen to the coach. If you like him/her you should be able to swim with them on Saturday a.m., and if you can make it one other day during the week (early a.m.), that would be great. Here's why: The kids are fast and enthusiastic-they can do anything! The varied workouts will make you much stronger and much faster. But, you gotta understand going in that you swim slower than most of the 10-12 year old girls. You gotta put all that macho male stuff aside 'cause you're gonna be dying in the middle of a 4 x 400. Also, go to some of the USAS meets. I don't understand why more triathletes haven't figured this one out, but the meets will make you faster. I've watched kids drop oodles of time in meets and do it meet after meet. It's just like doing an occasional marathon or 10K race.

If you are out in the boonies, then you've got to find the nearest excellent coach and have him spend some time with you. He might be a USAS coach in a nearby city. You could go on a weekend and have your stroke taped by your wife and have his corrections taped as well. Go home. Practice PROPERLY. 10,000 yards is not necessary, and may actually be contraindicated if you are very strong with poor technique. (I actually suspect you have fairly good technique.)

I would recommend TI, but you sound like the kind of guy who wants to go a bit farther AND DO IT FASTER.

Getting better at swimming is really about technique AND hard work. Technique is much more important for the obvious hydrodynamic reasons which I will not bore you with here. :)

Good luck!

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

I've found that breathing every third easily "feels" quicker. or rather, breathing every other feels slower. perhaps working on that will help?

is don't sweat it!! As Robert said, your times are pretty fast for a triathlete. The guys who are beating you most likely come from a swimming background, and there is really no way you are going to catch up to them without hurting the rest of your training. No offense, just that those guys who swam competitively from the time they were 6 through college were doing 10,000 yds/day, so each week you are about 60,000yds behind. You've reached a point of diminishing returns, in that you are going to have to spend an inordinate amount of time in the pool to see minimal gains on your times. I would keep doing what you are doing. Throw in alot of drill work to fine tune your form, and throw in some speedwork (hard 50s and 100s) in your workouts. Think about it like this - you are going to have to work extremely hard in the water to make even a gain of 1min, yet you could make up that 1min with one or two fast transitions. I heard an interesting quote from Rich Strauss of cruciblefitness.com this past weekend during a tri-clinic - "they don't give medals to the guys with the fastest splits, those go to the guys who cross the line first". Spend your time on the bike, the run, in the gym or stretching to to allow yourself to get into a better aero position on the bike.

As to your second question on the breathing. The less you can breathe (without blowing up) the faster you are going to be, since breathing interrupts your body position. Practice breathing every 3 strokes, which will more than likely improve your rotation to the side that you are not breating on and improve your position in the water a bit. There ya go, there's some free speed.

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Fit2Tri Multisport
http://www.fit2tri.com

For the breathing, never breath every 2. Never, ever, ever, ever. To sum it up, it really throws off your body position and you don't swim straight meaning you have to swim more than you have to(makes a big diffrence in open water). If your tired and cannot breath every 3 without dying, try every 2-3-2 until you can get back to every 3.

Sorry to disagree, bigd, but I do. For some reason, in open water I always breathe every two strokes and have no issues with tracking. Now, I must admit that I am not a good swimmer so I'm not going to offer any advise here. All I'll say is that I breathe every two strokes and have come across a couple pros in forums who do the same. (If I could just remember which ones. Arrgggh!!)

Breathing pattern is a bit more of a personal feeling thing rather than what is fastest. My background is competitive swimming and have been that 6yo doing 10k's a day. My breathing is every two strokes. I am balanced this way and it doesn't slow me down. Others prefer 3 or 4. Up to you and what feels best for balance and how fast you run out of oxygen. I don't breathe every 2 because I am going to blow up, but because this is what I find natural, works for me and keeps me ploughing through the water. If you have a look at the great 1500m swimmers (all Australian of course), you will notice that they generally breathe every second stroke. At certain periods they change to 3 to keep an eye on others in the race. The same thing was thought for butterfly. Breathe every one or two? Breathe with a pattern that you are comfortable with.

P.S. The weather is a mild 30C down here in Australia. Had to train indoors today, because of the rain. Life is tough... By the way, the pool water is hot!

Breathing one sided isn't necessarily bad, nor is having one side of your body being a bit dominant on the free a bad thing either. I'm noticibly slower with a higher heart rate absolutely breathing every three than I am breathing right side only. (mix of every 2 and 4 for 200s, every 2 for longer once I'm past the first 100) Several different coaches tried to change my breathing pattern over the years, but I'd keep coming back to every 2 because that was the breathing pattern that would get me a 5:41 500 and 19:52 1650

Open water, I'm a straight swimmer and will end up breathing 85% right, 15% left on a counter-clockwise course, 95/5 if it's clockwise.

As for improvement, I would give the speed work a try. You're doing enough yardage that endurance isn't an issue. Time to learn how to crank it up a couple more gears.

try to use bilateral breathing. It might take awhile to get used to, but in the long run, you will be better off. I can't give an actual drop for x amount of yards, but my swim coach hated when I breathed on one side of my body.

Thanks guys, good advice. Anybody know of a good swim coach in the NW or how to find one? I'd really like to get my stroke taped and analyzed. Has anyone done this and where? I live in WA, but I can travel for cheap. Thanks

http://www.usa-swimming.org/...=news&pubid=2590

Go to the link above. Find a USAS team in your area. Contact the head coach. He/She will point you in the right direction.

I agree with FlJill re breathing. Most folks are lopers, with a dominant side. Selnikov swam 14+ for the 1500 breathing to one side only. Janet Evans PREFERRED to breath to one side and often did. Many top swimmers breath to one side. I breath exclusively to the left and I was born left-handed. Dr. Larry Wiesenthal thinks you should breath to your dominant side. That's theory.

All I can say about spending time trying to get better at swimming is it's your time and you may or may not improve very significantly. Any motor skill learned after the onset of puberty is much harder to master and the chances of excelling dwindle with age. Even with those caveats, I'd say to follow your dream. If you are swimming that fast at 30 with as little experience as you have, you are at least moderately gifted. You might become a top Master's swimmer. Also, there is something to be said for coming out of the water with the fast guys. You may never be a world beater at triathlons, but you could "win" the swims or become the World Master's champion in the 1500 for your age group at some point. I would find that exciting. Unfortunately, I'm a sprint breaststroker.... :), And not a very good one either.

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

I actually breathe bilaterally just fine. In the pool I always breathe every third stroke. My issue is in open water I always feel better breathing every two. The side I breathe on is irrelevent although it's usually to the left. I'm not exactly sure why it is that my style changes between the pool and open water. Maybe it's anexiety in open water (though I don't feel anxious), or maybe I swim a touch harder in open water. I don't know. I probably should get to the bottom of it. Guess I'll add that to the list...

I have to agree with the comment that was made earlier in this post: that a 1000 yard 15 min will beat most of the competitors. Here is my opinion and experience: I swim 3-4 times a week, about 2000-2300 yards at each session. My practices are a mixture of long distances and short sprinting sessions. I see a wide variety of people in the pool, from some that can barely swim to people that know what they are doing. In the last 9 months, I have only come up against one guy that I can't keep up with.

Not that my times are anything to write home about. I used to swim in high school, but only sprints, never long distance. Now at age 31, my fastest time to date for a 1500 in a pool is 26:40. Like I said, nothing spectacular. I would kill to get to 15 minute 1000 yards. I have greatly improved my time since I started seriously swimming again last June. When I started, my 400 yard time was 7:30. I have now taken a minute off of that, and I my goal is to get it close to 6 minutes. That is still averaging 1:30 for 100 yards, which according to some of these posts is "slow". However, I think that if I can take some of that time off and be very competitive in my age group.

Another point: about a month ago, I went to a Masters swim practice. There were about 30 people there, and there was only about 5 people that were faster than me. I didn't go back because I simply can't afford it right now, even though I would love to. I was talking to one of the life guards that is there on Masters night, and she said that I swim better and faster than most of the people at Masters (maybe she was just coming on to me, or at least that's what I like to think :-) )

Kudos to you for such a great time. I think that if you look at the percentage of people that are swimming that fast, you will find that you are in the very top percentile.

I know that with the swim team that I work out, the fastest distance swimmer breathes on one side (17.26 for 1500 m SC), I personally find that I am much more relaxed when I breath bi-laterally, but when I'm racing I will normally end up breathing on one side because I need the oxygen. I've been only "seriously" swimming for ~7 months now, I work out with our varsity swimming team, which I find awsome, 3 times a week with them, and 2 twice a week by my self and I can hold ~1.22 / 100m. (well, I was doing 300 repeats last night on 4.30 and coming in on 4.10). My weekly volume is about 12000 m, and I think I'll be able to hold 1.20's very soon. I think initially drills are super important, for the first 2-3 months that was basically all we did in practice, I've started to do alot more kick sets and that is definatly benifiting both my running and swimming. With my limited experiance I would say work on alot of short distance sprint stuff, and the mix in some longer repeats. My team is primarly sprinters, and so the workouts are geared to them, and I know that because of this I have a much higher lactic acid threshold, and can hold my speed for longer. He're a great middle distance workout that works on both aerobic capacity and pushes LT.

warm up - 200 s, 200 p, 100 s

main set - 4* (300 s - 4.30, 200 k - 4.30)

cool down - 300 p, 200 s

I did it in 55 min, and felt like I was gonna puke by the end of it.

Another good one for long aerobic distance.

Warm up - 200 s, 200 p, 200k, 200s

4* (25 swim - IM order) on 45 sec (ie. 25 fly, 25 back, 25 breast, 25 free) 4 times through

3* 800 - 12.30 or 13

200 cool down

Also, you should also start to work on other strokes, learn fly, back and breast because it will help free, and also give you a good workout.

also.. http://www.swiminfo.com/swim-cgi/work_search.pl.. (they have tons of workouts designed to do everything).

Hope it helps.. good luck