Aqua Sphere Guppies (2 weeks to go)

Triathlon Forum
1

first, congratulations on getting this far!

there are two kinds of swimmers out there. really, there are two kinds of athletes out there. one kind is my kind: i don’t want a strict schedule. i don’t want to be given a workout schedule. i’d rather have an idea what it is i want to achieve per week, per month, and then get myself there via my own devices.

the second kind of person is, well, the other kind. and honestly, the very BEST athletes i’ve known have been in this second category: give me my workout for today!

i have treated you like the first kind of athlete in the beginning of this challenge, and my kind of athlete in the second half of this challenge. at some point you’re going to have to slot in somewhere, when it comes to your swim. me, as an example, i like the rigor, the structure, the comeraderie, the challenge, of a masters swim team. but only maybe once a week. when i was younger, more like 3 or 4 times a week. but i can’t do that now because i have an occasional bout with atrial fibrillation and it has several triggers and one of them is too much of running with the gas pedal to the floor too often.

still, getting in that pool, with a bunch of people in the lane, and you’re swimming circles, lots of people around you, that’s good preparation for open water swimming. and you just get faster. you get faster quicker. nothing beats a master’s team if you want to get fast in a hurry.

that said, i like swimming by myself too. the older i get the more i like it. i like setting medium-term goals and a pretty good goal for you guppies is to take these new skills you’ve learned and see how long they’ll carry you. what i have in mind is as follows:

i’d like you to think about what kind of pace you can keep for a long swim. by “long” i mean at least 2000 yards straight. do you think you can hold 2-minute pace? 2:15? 1:50? think about what that pace is. you ought to have a pretty good idea now what your pace might be.

now, what i want is increasingly longer swims. at least once a week, going forward - and, yes, this may survive the end of the guppy challenge - see if you can increase that distance. if you think can swim 1500 yards in 30 minutes, then, let’s do it. next week, 2000 yards. week after, how about 2500 yards? i’d like to see you push this up, 500 yards at a time, and if you want to know where and when i think you can stop, i’m saying it’s 6000 yards. i don’t know that there’s any value in going past that.

but i’m hear to tell you, if you can swim 6000 straight yards, you are going to be a studly mofo in an ironman swim.

if this sounds appealing to you, you can accelerate the interval between these swims to whatever suits you. if you want to swim 1500 yards straight tomorrow or the day after, and then add 400 or 500 yards to last time’s total every other day, or twice a week, great, have at it. when you get to 4500 yards you are now exceeding the race distance of an ironman. there is something pretty powerful in swimming distance increasingly longer than that. you enter the race the master of that which you survey. you exit that swim invigorated rather than exhausted.

to those of you who think this is an appealing challenge, i’m going to join you. for the next several weeks this is going to be my medium term goal: increasingly longer straight swims. let’s compare notes (here on this thread).

otherwise, if you are game, and you would like to break up these long swims with a set, i have one more set for you to do and it’s a long set. it’s a 1500yd set.

3 x 100yd, leaving on the 2min, strong pace
3 x 100yd, leaving on the 2:20, as slow as you can possibly swim while holding form.
3 x 100yd, leaving on the 2min, strong pace
3 x 100yd, leaving on the 2:20, as slow as you can possibly swim while holding form.
3 x 100yd, leaving on the 2min, strong pace

if this leave is too slow for you, make the fast sets a leave on the 1:40, slow on the 2:00.
if this leave is too fast for you, then on the fast sets leave on the 2:20, slow sets leave on the 2:40
if this leave is still too fast for you, then on the fast sets leave on the 2:40, slow sets leave on the 3:00

this set will add power to the long swims described above, and it’s a set that is designed to help you hold form. the operative part of this set is not the fast swims. it’s the slow swims. if you can hold form during the slow swims, you can leverage your form during the fast swims. this is not a hard set. it’s a recovery set. it’s recovering from the long swims described above.

finally, some time in the next few weeks - this week, next week, or 2 or 3 weeks from now, whenever you want - i’d like you to swim that final 300yd time trial, and compare that to your initial TT of that distance if you did that TT back in the beginning. put your times here.

2

is aqua sphere a sponsor of the guppies? Man love their new goggles

3

“is aqua sphere a sponsor of the guppies? Man love their new goggles”

you bet. we have a thing ongoing right now, just started, the Slowtwitch Goggle Tour, where the participating dealers are going to have Aqua Sphere’s goggles, along with Zoggs and blueseventy goggles, in stock in force, with demo goggles out of the aftermarket packaging. in particular Aqua Sphere’s kaiman and kayenne goggles are very popular among triathletes.

4

I love the idea of slowly increasing the long swim. But after reading this discussion http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=4961915;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; I was thinking it wasn’t a good idea. Is this just a 2 schools of thought thing?

I’m also trying to decide if I want to join a master’s group - and your description of both wanting to get faster, but enjoying swimming by yourself is spot on for me. Still debating.

Thanks very much for the swim challenge. It’s been extremely helpful.

Nancy

5

in my opinion, people way, way, way overthink training. as in, way overthink it.

what you need, in running, in cycling, in swimming, are three things: fitness, technique, and tactics. it’s split this way: fitness 60 percent; technique 30 percent; tactics 10 percent.

that ratio does not hold for all sports. for example, in swimming it’s fitness and technique are probably reversed or, maybe, 50/40 in favor of technique.

but let’s just get to the fitness part. in “my” day, and my day could have been anywhere along a long span of time, but, for this exercise let’s call it the early 1970s, there was a training theory in running called LSD: long slow distance. some of the world’s best runners, such as gerry lindgren and dave bedford, ascribed to this theory. they subordinated speedwork and intervals, and almost the only speed they did was during races. they ran 200, 240, even up to 300 miles a week. slowly.

one of the triathletes i sponsored back in the 1990s was greg whitely. he came from running, and while a runner he set a PR of 13:26 while setting an american record on the road for that distance. he rarely ran more than 55 miles a week. but it was quality.

what gets you fit is work. long slow distance will get you fit. shorter, harder exertions will get you fit. there are lots of ways to get fit. there are lots of ways to get fast. none of you, in this challenge, are at that point where you have to really parse the pool sets closely because one way is likely to get you out of the kona bay in 51min instead of 53min.

it has been my observation that some runners break down with too much quality, they thrive on quantity, even if they’re not a long or ultra distance athlete. others thrive on quality and break down with distance. in the water, a straight 4000 or 5000 yard swim isn’t the kind of distance that will break you down, as long as you don’t try to do it cold turkey (rather, you build up to that over a series of successively longer swims over a number of weeks or even months).

if we’re going to discuss how to get you from 15:30 for a 1500m freestyle to sub-15min for that distance, yes, i would eschew straight 5000 yard swims. but if we’re talking about how to get you from a 2hr survival swim in your ironman to a 1:30 attacking swim in the ironman, the very best single thing you can do is throw yards at the problem.

i don’t care how you do it. if you want to do it via 8 x 500yd swims, fine. if you want to do it as a straight 4000yd swim, fine. matters not. really does not matter whatsoever. what matters to you, now, is just a lot of yards, because of that other thing you need: technique. the more you swim, the more your technique will improve. the more you swim the stronger you’ll get and that’ll allow you to make technical changes that you cannot make without a base of swimming underneath you.

what does matter is that you take these skills you learn in multisport and leverage them toward places that you haven’t been before. please pardon if i take a few sentences to veer off into a wild digression to underscore a point. the american experience is no better exemplified than in this country’s westward expansion. we celebrate the pioneer spirit, the endurance of fur trappers, mountain men, pioneers, early settlers. the struggles they overcome is the basis for our national and cultural mythology. we can’t do that anymore. there’s nothing left to explore, to conquer, on over over which we can prevail. so we imitate, conjure up, replicate this through a celebration of strength, exertion and struggle. one expression of that celebration is a triathlon. we can sit home and watch old westerns on TV. but we choose to get off the couch and participate, rather than spectate. the brilliance of multisport is in the number of tools and skills we can use to engage in our own exercise of that american mythology.

that long paragraph’s worth of digression is just to suggest a theme: farther. farther out, farther in, farther along. there’s something that catches the breath when one contemplates something he’s never before accomplished. riding 120 miles when the furthest you’ve ever ridden is 80. running up into the mountains, and not turning around until you’ve run to one peak further than you’ve run before. most of you have enjoyed these progressions in bike and run. but there’s a limit to how far you’re likely to ride your bike in the normal course of training. while you’ve tested your limits in bike and run, most of you in this challenge have not even begun to explore your limits in the swim. therefore, my suggestion is not relevant to those at the pointy end of swimming, but i think it relevant to you, here - you guppies - because you haven’t flexed your muscles in the swim. you haven’t exited the water feeling as if you did something that no one else in the pool has likely done. i’d like to see a little swagger in your step when you exit the pool, and it’s my sense that the ability to execute successively longer swims will foster that.

i don’t know whether these long sustained swims are exercises you’ll engage in once you become truly competent swimmers. but i think you might get a kick out of doing them now.

6

I am definitely the second kind of person - give me the plan and I will follow it 100% :slight_smile: But I am not the best one :slight_smile:

I was sick last week, so didn’t swim as much as I usually do, but now I am back on track. Not very exited about long swims, but I will start to increase the distance tomorrow.

7

“Not very exited about long swims, but I will start to increase the distance tomorrow.”

at the risk of sounding sexist (guys can sound sexist and be sexist without realizing they are, so, please forgive me if i’m heading in that direction) it has been my observation that ladies are more likely to fall into that second category than men are.

i’m going to see if i can round up a whole spitload of guppy workout sessions and aggregate them into one big pdf that i’ll post here in this thread. then you can take your pick of workouts. as for the increasingly longer swims, it’s one way to get faster, stronger, fitter. one of many. what i really want is just to find a fun, challenging way to take your current fitness and use it to gain a bunch of fitness in one big bloc of swimming. what i want is to end this challenge in a crescendo of longer and longer swim sessions. then we’ll swim something, some indicator, a 300yd, 1000yd, whatever, and you can see what these long sessions got you.

8

one more thing about the thread you referenced. early on there was a discussion about how to tell when you’ve swum a particular distance. especially if you don’t have a pool clock. i’ll be writing about a couple of products in the next week, one of which was referenced in the thread: the finis tempo trainer. the second is a device that you probably don’t know about, i’m swimming with it right now, it’s advertised today. it’s swimovate. specifically i’m swimming in their poolmate live. still finding my way around this watch. it works as a standard watch, does everything in the standard way, it’s a dryland watch when you want it to be, stopwatch, all the basic chronometry, alarm, date, etc., but in the water it counts laps and it vibrates on an interval. so, if you wanted to set this thing to vibrate every 90sec, or 2min, it does so, and you’ll know if you’re on pace or not. at the end of what you think is a 2000, or 4000, whatever, swim, it’ll tell you if you really swam that distance. or, set it to vibrate every # of laps, every 1000 yards, or at the end of your swim, so that you’ll know when you’re done.

but i’m still fiddling with this device, i’ll write more about it when i know more about it.

9

I don’t see it as sexist. It’s true there are some gender preferences. I seem to be one of those women who don’t always do what “most” other women do. I don’t mind being told (by a coach) what needs to be done, but I’ll probably do it my way - when and how I want to. I’m not the best at being coached. Oh well.

I do like the idea of some swim w/o, so that would be very helpful.

And thanks for the explanation above. That was also helpful.

Nancy

10

Yes, Dan, thank you for your most recent posts. I guess I am a Type 2 and enjoy reading your philosophy as well as more direction regarding workouts. Whenever you post I just feel better as I feel I am getting better direction.

11

but i’m hear to tell you, if you can swim 6000 straight yards, you are going to be a studly mofo in an ironman swim.

I’ve got a long way to go before I can swim 6000 straight but thanks for putting that goal out there. I’m loving this challenge!!! Haven’t been timing anything so don’t know if I’m faster. I definitely feel stronger and more confident. Maybe I’ll time myself in the spring challenge(or when I get a swim watch). Maybe I won’t. But I don’t want any excuses come July(IMLP)!!!

12

that long paragraph’s worth of digression is just to suggest a theme: farther. farther out, farther in, farther along. there’s something that catches the breath when one contemplates something he’s never before accomplished. riding 120 miles when the furthest you’ve ever ridden is 80. running up into the mountains, and not turning around until you’ve run to one peak further than you’ve run before. most of you have enjoyed these progressions in bike and run. but there’s a limit to how far you’re likely to ride your bike in the normal course of training. while you’ve tested your limits in bike and run, most of you in this challenge have not even begun to explore your limits in the swim. therefore, my suggestion is not relevant to those at the pointy end of swimming, but i think it relevant to you, here - you guppies - because you haven’t flexed your muscles in the swim. you haven’t exited the water feeling as if you did something that no one else in the pool has likely done. i’d like to see a little swagger in your step when you exit the pool, and it’s my sense that the ability to execute successively longer swims will foster that.

i don’t know whether these long sustained swims are exercises you’ll engage in once you become truly competent swimmers. but i think you might get a kick out of doing them now.

this is so very true. thanks so much for addressing the long swim “useless” issue. I’ve really been concerned about that. I’m likely not going to be able to compare times for the 300 because water conditions will likely be very different and no chance for the calm seas again, but I did take about 15 minutes off my 5k time so far in this challenge but the biggest change was that I felt strong (and i have to remind myself to keep comparing myself ONLY to myself because compared to almost everyone else swimming i was slow as molasses) and very capable through the 3rd lap and into the 4th (it was a 1.25 k course). I was WRECKED after my first 5K and today (the day after) I’m ready to swim again AND the first 3 laps felt “easy”. And for me, that means more than the time.

13

i’m going to see if i can round up a whole spitload of guppy workout sessions and aggregate them into one big pdf that i’ll post here in this thread. then you can take your pick of workouts. as for the increasingly longer swims, it’s one way to get faster, stronger, fitter. one of many. what i really want is just to find a fun, challenging way to take your current fitness and use it to gain a bunch of fitness in one big bloc of swimming. what i want is to end this challenge in a crescendo of longer and longer swim sessions. then we’ll swim something, some indicator, a 300yd, 1000yd, whatever, and you can see what these long sessions got you.

Dan,

Great idea to put all of the guppy workouts together. I did the first guppy challenge and copied all of the workouts and some of the questions/answers that helped me into a word file. I’m still limited by a slow-to-heal head injury, but I do a lot of the drills (except the one-arm drill - I never was quite sure I was doing that one right) along with some drills from my coach. My hope is that when I’m cleared to really swim and can let my heart rate go up, my technique will still be decent. Just curious - did you add or change anything for round 2?

Thanks for the time and effort you’ve put into the guppies!

Diane

14

Slowman, when does the next Guppie challenge begin?

15

we’re going to get a couple of new challenges going early march, a new guppie as well as another challenge for people just a bit faster.

16

Awesome! This news makes my day. Please give some guidelines as to which group people should gravitate toward. Either by time or by yards / week. Thanks so much!

17

I guess I will be the first to publish a TT result.Never did a 300 TT only the 1000 TT. I went from 19:10 at the beginning of the challenge to 18:35 today. Not a whole lot of improvement and I was hoping for a better result. That said, considering my age (67) any improvement is a plus. I know I did not put in the effort that people like Katia and Old Bull did so overall I have to be pleased. I believe my form has improved as I really find myself concentrating on high elbows, EVF, and pull. Thanks again, Dan, for doing this. Looking forward to the next challenge.

18

I will do my 300 yards TT on next week and my 1000 tt next weekend. Didn’t have time today and tomorrow I am going to run 20 miles. Don’t think it will be a good idea to do any tt after that.

I tried 2000 yards continuously swim on Feb 25th. My time was 35:18 and I felt very strong at the end and wasn’t tied at all. Probably could keep that pace for another 1000 yards for sure.

I am very happy with my improvement. This time puts me in the MOP for my age group (F40-45). I am very exited about this coming season (my second tri season). Last year my first tri was Columbia Tri and then I did Eagleman. I am going to do both of them again this year and compare my swim with 2013.

19

I will do my 300 yards TT on next week and my 1000 tt next weekend. Didn’t have time today and tomorrow I am going to run 20 miles. Don’t think it will be a good idea to do any tt after that.

I tried 2000 yards continuously swim on Feb 25th. My time was 35:18 and I felt very strong at the end and wasn’t tied at all. Probably could keep that pace for another 1000 yards for sure.

I am very happy with my improvement. This time puts me in the MOP for my age group (F40-45). I am very exited about this coming season (my second tri season). Last year my first tri was Columbia Tri and then I did Eagleman. I am going to do both of them again this year and compare my swim with 2013.

Katia - As a relatively new tri-girl, you may not be aware that tri swims of the alleged same distance can vary greatly, as in plus/minus 50%. I’ve done an alleged 1500 meters where I came out of the water in 14:30, which would be a WR for 1500 in the pool, and then I’ve done a 1500 where I came out in 30:00. The 14:30 swim was with a current, and the 30:00 against but, even in lake swims the distance can vary greatly depending on how much care the swim course lay-out folks take, which is generally not much. Around 90% of the tri swims I’ve done have been short, with just a very few long like the 30:00 one. I’m judging “short” and “long” based on my pool times for 1650 yd/1500 m. Even the same race can vary year-to-year: at Memphis in May, a long-running oly tri here in the South, my 1500 times have varied across a 4:00 span (i.e., plus/minus 2:00) over the years, despite my swim shape being pretty much the same each year. The only real way to determine in a rough way whether you had a good swim or not is to compare your time to the fastest swimmer’s time. Generally speaking, that person will be a guy who can swim 16-17 min for a 1500 in the pool, but you won’t know unless you find him and ask him how fast he going these days. In summary, time trials in the pool are the only real way to determine improvement:)

It should be noted that the fastest swimmer is not always a guy: at the U. of GA tri some years ago, Sheila Taormina was there and had the fastest split overall by about 1:30:)

20

Hey thanks for all your info & thanks for getting me motivated to hit the pool more. Its has come to the point where if I don’t do at least 3k yds, I’m disappointed. I even did one of your “2 a-days” last Friday. I swam 3k+ yds in the morning then my daughter was going to the Y in the afternoon, so I swam 1k+ meters then.
I had a few hiccups, like the flu in January and a head cold 2 weeks ago, which kept me out of the water. Ran (dread mill) & biked (trainer) yesterday and was going to swim today, but due to the weather, our Y is closed :frowning:
All in all, I’ve seen improvement in my 100 times of around 10 seconds. Still not fast, but I’ll take it.
I made a card with your “3 x 100yd…” drill on it, so I will add that to my weekly routine. As you said, yards…yards…yards.
Thanks & good luck to all this season!