It's successful right up until you pick up a chronic injury :)

I know a lot of people who use the RLRF, but they are constantly picking up injuries. You might not have yet, but I'd be conscious of this. Running is one of the most injurious sports out there.

Re swimming less, but fast, I don't know. How much time have you got to dedicate to swimming per week? A typical swim set for me would be 3 - 4km, that includes a decent WU/CD plus drills, when I have been time crunched, I drop drills* and do WU/CD at a harder pace.

*still do the drills, I don't necessarily drop them, but would make sure they're hard e.g doing the 6-16 drill, I'd normally do with fins, time crunched I'd drop the fins.

Check out this thread; USRPT stands for "ultra-short race pace training".

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...m_Training_P4951308/

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

Have been on it for the last decade injury free but I agree with your thoughts in regards to injuries.

Being truthful, swimming is the discipline I haven't focused on. No drill work, just swim 2-4k straight. My thought behind a similar program would be that each workout had 'purpose'.

For Texas this year I followed trainer road low volume ironman program on the bike (100-150 miles per week). Blended some of the RLRF workouts in for the run and blended (25 miles per week on average) and swam 2-3 times for a weekly total of 5-6k.

Other than volume was hoping to find structure :)

Thanks again for your reply.

Short W/U, Main set: 100 intervals at threshold pace with a 10 second rest interval, quick cool down. Keep the send-off interval consistent throughout the 100s; so if your threshold pace is 1:35, do all of them on the 1:45. Start with 10-15 and work your way up to 20-30. Do this 3-4 times a week and you will improve your swimming fitness. If your stroke needs a lot of work, you should also get help from a local coach or you'll struggle to get much faster.

I’d definitely give USRPT a shot. My own program for next year is likely going to be mostly USRPT based, due to lack of available time in the pool.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Your eloquently outlined the underlying problem to your swim issues in these sentences.

Honestly, find a master's program you like. I had to change the one I am using and really like it. The coach gives direction on my technique and gives us workouts. I don't have to think (about what the workout should be) -- just do it. I swim 2-3 times a week, family dependent.

Yeah this.

No drills and just 2km straight is bad.

Some important drills (IMO)

sculling
fists
6/1/6
zipper

Goggle them for videos. I'd do 100m for each drill, so in a 50m pool, 25 drill, then launch into hard freestyle, turn drill 25, then hard freestyle. I'm saying hard so you're getting a bit of a workout with your drills as you need to maximize your sessions.

Read what others write about pace sets. Good information there.

But, I'll add this: your 10:02 is a great time. The drops to gain those KQ or whatever goals are can come from all three sports. However, compression in swimming times is much harder to achieve than a better balance in all three.

I think most would agree that a :60 swim gets you into the elite ranks of swimmers. You'd have to do A LOT of swim training, no matter what the program, to drop those 18 minutes, and, doing all that work won't mean your bike and run splits will stay the same. Those will slow down.

So, realistically, you need to find a program that will get your entire race :18-20 faster. Do the training for swimming that can get you :06 faster, and then do the work on the bike (:08) and run (:04) that will get you there. Train and race like that for a year or two, and your swim will improve into the :68 range or faster, while still staying strong for the next 8:54 of your day.

On my three IM races, I was :57, :57, :55, with my best day total being 11:18. Dudes beat me by :60-:80 overall who swam :10-:12 slower than I did. I was never outside the top three in my AG in the swim, but never inside the top 40 in my AG OA. I'll bet very few, if any, of those guys at the sharp end of the OA standings envied my swim, but I sure as hell envied guys beating me by AN HOUR on the bike. Point being that you get diminishing returns overall with a stellar swim, if it comes at the expense of the rest of your day.

Yes. I’ve been coaching a race pace program for the last 5 years. We get the same or better results as a traditional approach on 50-60% of the volume.

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

My 2 cents for swimming and cycling

More volume more Intensity

These two sports you can do a lot of volume at intensity. If you do that and just do easy runs you get your overall race time way ahead of yourself swimming less swimming faster, biking less biking faster, running less running faster.

Seriously running intervals for the age group triathlete are totally overrated.....Volume and Intensity for the other two are underrated. You can swim intensity 6 days per week and still go out and ride hard 5 days per week (of your 7 rides per week).....then go out and jog around in between all the swim and bike intensity at lunch time or transition runs and you're set

This is probably a loaded question, but what would target volume be for an olympic distance athlete that swims a mile in ~1:28/100yds? Thanks!

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Yeah, it's a loaded question. First thing would be that you need to get away from the idea of volume - better to think in terms of pace. What are your goals for the swim? How much time do you have to train? Consistency is more important than volume. How much do you train for the swim now? How much do you train on the bike and run? That's where I would start.

Tim

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

Interesting. I really don't have much of a life, so realistically I could be swimming about 6 hours a day. Lol. At this time, I actually think I have some substantial defects in my catch and pull, so I've been using "volume" as a way to ingrain those improved fundamentals. Optimizing my technique for a more efficient stroke is definitely my primary priority, but a close second is simply improving my swim time over the 1500m swim leg. I usually swim 5x per week and ~6 to 7 miles. Historically (last 6 months), about 40% of my training time has been spent in the pool.

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I would say, "Swim the same, swim smarter."

I second the join a Masters team recommendation. Look for one with 1 hour practices. Do three of those a week and it will equal the amount of time you are already putting in. Masters tend to do a lot of interval training and a good coach will help with form too.
If time is still a issue, try to make 2 Masters workouts a week. That would be better than what you're doing.

You can throw volume at it and it'll work eventually, but it's not in my experience the most efficient way to get better.
Typically, when you swim a lot of volume your focus on your stroke diminishes, you end up more concerned with finishing out the set regardless of your technique and what you've done is just ingrain a lot of slow and sloppy habits into your stroke. You can't separate out technique from training. They build on one another. With that being said, if you are swimming 1:28/100 right now it's probably more your fitness than your technique that is the big limiter.

The number of times a week you are swimming is what you would need to improve. When you say 40% of your training time has been spent in the pool what are you doing the other 60% of the time? Do you mean bike and run is 60%?

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

I totally agree about the inverse relation between set volume and the ability to focus on technique. If swim fitness is my problem, increase the number of workouts per week from 4 or 5, keeping the same volume per workout? As someone asked in another thread, is your set pace determined by goal race pace, current race pace or some derivative of those? And yes, 40% between swim/bike/run; I don't count weight training or stretching or anything like that. Thanks for your time!

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

at 1:18 (2:01/100m) you need to spend more total time in the water and lots of short intervals to build your technique.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

USRPT might not be great for a 2:01/100 guy.... once he gets to 1:40 then it's a solid plan.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

What is the volume you use per week on a USRPT program? As 50% sounds like a massive reduction, unless they were swimming above 20km before (ie 4 sessions of 5km per week, which is quite a bit for any triathlete, unless it's their full time job).

Ah, I see your point; I just always think USRPT when someone says "swim less but faster". Your point about lots of short intervals is dead on; that's all we did when I started swimming, mostly 50s and 100s, with the occasional 200 thrown in as a "distance swim". Most practices ended with 6-8, 25 sprints off the blocks, with the walk back to the blocks as our "rest interval".

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

What were the race distances you were training for at that time? Assuming that they were relatively short pool distances, how would your training change if you were racing olympic distance tris? Thanks.

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I'm very curious what the answer to this is also.

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I train lowish volume per session but a large portion at race pace.... some of recent Masters race times... (my 800 was 8:51 and 200 Back was 2:15 after I posted). I throw up some of my workouts here as well. My plan is to fo more 400IM training after my A race of the tri season.


https://www.instagram.com/...igshid=1v03utxye2ifn

Lane 4 Blue/Grey suit (Canadian Masters Nats final heat of men's 200 IM).

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)