I want to try to do a sub 10 double this summer as a guy. Swim 500 yards sub 5 minutes and run < 4’30" for the mile.
Those who swam 500 yards under 5 minutes how many sessions did you guys swim. I had a plan to swim 28 000 yards a week.
Also what pace do you guys swim for long slow swims like 1000 yards continuous easy pace or at a tempo pace?
How did you guys train or do you guys train?
What is your current best 500 yd time?
What is your best 100 yd time?
With those we can guesstimate if it’s possible.
I want to try to do a sub 10 double this summer as a guy.
Are you sure you don’t want to do it as a girl? 
I haven’t gone that fast in a really long time. Well before my tri days began. I think if I were to try it again it would mean going back to swimming twice per day for quite awhile.
Sub 5 minutes is pretty quick.
In college I got to about a 4:45 and only tapered. In season I was right around 5:05.
To get that fast it took me 4 years of training in high school. (I had not swam prior to HS swimming). I did train in the off season too. However I rarely did doubles. Those 4 years got me to a 5:09 or so.
In college I was a D3 swimmer. So we didn’t really do doubles. No scholorships or things like that. During winter break we did doubles…so that was fun stuff. I busted my knee freshman year so I didn’t break 5:00 until sophmore year.
Typically I think I did about 5,000 yards per day 6 days per week. Plus I had other people in the pool pushing me, plus a coach watching my stroke.
What you need to do to accomplish this depends on how fast and efficient you are now. If you’re a strong swimmer already I think you can do it with some effort. Depending on your time frame doing doubles 2-3 days per week with one swim on the other days would be good. A weight lifting program would be helpful too. A 500 is a controlled sprint. So you’ll need the strength.
Make sure your turns are rock solid.
As I think about it more…power is going to be the key. Yesterday I did a sprint set of 5 x 100’s sprint with 4 minutes rest. I held them all at :59 - 1:01. With rest. Doing that without rest is another thing. You’ll need to get your sprinting down to a :54-:55…and then build the endurance around it.
And have a coach create your workouts…many high school coaches could do this. They have the whole season planned out. Make sure you follow a good taper period.
Right now if I were in a race situation I could do about a 5:35-5:40. (if fact I did do a 5:40 at my high school about 3 months ago…and I am in much better shape now). To improve enough to go sub 5 would probably take me 4 months of dedication.
When I was going sub 5s consistently, I was 15ish and doing 8 workouts a week. Mornings M W F for 1.5 hours, Sat for 2.5 hours, and afternoons MTWTh for 2 hours. I wasn’t a particularly talented swimmer and I was going to high school at the time. I have no idea what yardage was like, but I think it varied pretty significantly on a weekly basis. I don’t think you need to do that if you are a triathlete, but I’ve never broken 5 as a triathlete on swimming volume of ~ 9K per week. So for me, the answer is somewhere between a relaxed 9K per week and enough pool time to make your brain combust with boredom, but I doubt your answer will be the same as mine. A lot of it will depend on your personal physiological characteristics.
Just as another data point, I went a 4:48 with no shave when I was only partially tapered, and I never went much faster when I was fully tapered.
I had a plan to swim 28 000 yards a week.
Most sub 5 swimmers do at least twice that because they have a coach that gives them that much. It can be easily done on 28k though . . . depending on the person.
Also what pace do you guys swim for long slow swims like 1000 yards continuous easy pace or at a tempo pace?
What is a long slow swim? Maybe I’m from a different age, but we never did one of those. You should be able to do over 4000 yds/hr including kicking and pull sets.
What’s your current time for 500 yds? Just curious.
It depends on how fast you are now. At the time I first went under 5:00 I had been swimming pretty hard year round for a couple years. There are folks who go under 5 on the 28K you propose but they are doing it more on talent then training. 28K per week is pretty low yardage by swimming standards. The summer I first broke 5 I was averaging over 75,000 yds per week and had been for a couple years.
5:00 is pretty fast so you have to train for speed as well as endurance. Unless you have some super swim talent, you are not going to get under 5:00 just by “getting into shape.” You are going to have to work really hard on getting fast and that requires lots of high intensity interval work. Lots of sets of 200’s and 100’s and even some 50’s are more important than long swims. A nice set to do on a regular basis is 5 x 100 on the 1:10. You want to try and get so you can go all 5 under 1:00 in the middle of a workout.
What would you say the equivalent time is for a chick? Like 4:59 for a guy = ??? for a girl?
Just curious.
5:10
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What others have already said, there’s no such thing as l.s.d. or tempo swims in swimming. You’re going to be doing intervals, intervals, and more intervals. Start out at what you can do, and do it consistently. If you miss an interval, so be it, but just keep on going on the next one. I have no idea where you are starting at, but I assume you are already decently fast. So maybe 100’s on a 1:20 interval is where you’ll be starting, maybe even faster. If not, you probably have a long, long, long ways to go.
I’d say the “chick” equivalent to 5:00 for guy is about 5:25. Around here, those two times are pretty close to the respective high school state cuts for guys and gals and are close the respective AA USA Swimming standards in the 15 & O age group.
Darn, I still come up short.
you screen name bothers me… I don’t know how to pronounce “:D”
I think it would take much more swim training to hit those times then it would run training.
Running, I could do and have done that at 2x a week, one track workout and one long run day of like an 1:00-1:30.
Swimming I think it depends on your background. When swimming with my club team at 7 workouts a week and freshman year D1 in college at 9 swim workouts and 3 lifting sessions I could hold sub 5:00 in practice when we had a long workout day…I was a sprint freestyler, up to a 200. Presently I swim maybe once a week, if that, and could probably swim somewhere around a standalone 5:20 short course yards which translates to like maybe a 6 min 500yard free in a tri really reserving my energy which puts me way ahead of most fields so I don’t do anymore than that. I could easily get back to sub 5:00 with 28,000 yards a week, but that is because I have the background to do it.
Have you swam before, if so, what were your times like? I would break it up into sets of 200s, maybe something like 500, 2x400, 3x300. 4x200, 5x100 descending each set of swims and each of the 400’s, 300’s 200’s and 100’s…so the 400’s are faster than the 500, the 300’s are faster than the 400’s. Then another day put in some longer slower stuff, basically holding a pace you can keep steady throughout the swim an then slowly bringing down that pace. Throw in a sprint workout as well, something like 100’s or 50’s. Also don’t be afraid to mix in some other strokes and kicking. I could always pull long distances faster than I could swim then in practice so some pulling is good, but don’t over do it. Basically mix it all up.
If you don’t come from a swimming background in which you did the typical 40,000 to 80,000 yard a week (or more) with good coaching, I would be surprised if you can do it. I know many pro triathletes who don’t come from a swimming background but have worked hard to become front of the pack (or close to it) swimmers couldn’t break 5:00 for a 500 yard swim. I come from a swimming background and, while I was a backstroker, could do 4:45ish, but years later as a triathlete, probably would have a hard time getting below 5:15. 5:00 is pretty fast especially if you are a runner/triathlete with lots of slowtwitch muscles and limited upper body strength.
So I’ve never swam a 500, but I have swam a 400m one time two years ago in 4:36 (4;09 / 400y). That being said, I was swimming 3- 4 x per week for 1hour - 1.5 hours. I swam in highschool for 6-7 months per year, took entire summers off and then joined a club after HS to keep swimming a little. I now swim 4 x 1.5 hours per week and I’m faster than I used to be.
the best sets for me are generally:
5 x 400m fastest average on 6 minutes
10 x 200m around 1;10pace … generally all shorter distances in 1;10 base pace
some paddle work each practise too.
I check the clock when breathing about every 100 to even / neg-split pacing.
Sub 5 minute 500 isn’t impossible, you just have to specialized practice a bit if your not from a big siwm backgound.
so; meters per week for me is ~16,000m , and I hit my 400m repeats in about 5 minutes consistently
Just as another data point, I went a 4:48 with no shave when I was only partially tapered, and I never went much faster when I was fully tapered.
What exactly do you mean by “partially tapered” and “fully tapered”? Thanks.