After a year off, I’m finally back in the pool. First 25m I felt like a swimming god, like nothing had changed. Next 25m was OK, but last 50 was horrible. Shoulders were burning, stroke shortening up like a T-rex, tired.
It’s amazing I ever discovered my aerobic talents… based on this performance I’d just say I was not meant to be an endurance athlete. It was similar for biking, although running has always come easy. Good thing I was stubborn, obsessed, blissfully ignorant, what have you the first time.
I know that it’s a long road ahead, looking forward to making it to 200m without stopping.
It’s funny… I know I should be stretching out and relaxing, rotating and gliding, to go faster and get to the end of the pool with less energy, but somehow I just. can’t. do it.
Stats so far: two swims of :45 minutes each. Cannot finish a 25m fly when before 50m fly was the norm. 100m is tough, 200m right out, when before… well you know. I could swim for a long time with the shoulder burn and hypoxia and still maintain reasonable form.
A hard 100m before was in on the 1:20. Now I’m struggling to hit 1:35 on loooooonnngggg rest.
Before, lane 3. Now, lane 6 and falling off the back.
ughh… sorry about that. Did not mean that as a troll or drive by gloat.
I’m being serious though. Regardless of speed, shoulders burning so much that you want to quit after only 50m is a universal feeling I think, and that’s what I was trying to share. I guess I should have just said “I’ve lost 15 seconds per hundred, and am only able to do one, whereas before I could do them all day”.
It’s not all bad… when I dive in the pool and swim the first 25m I feel like a champ.
seriously though… this is what is was like when I learned to swim in back in 2006. No indication I could ever swim… but the endurance (and the better form that will allow me to swim more efficiently and with less gross errors that are killing me now) will come eventually.
Bonus is that I’m starting out with a Masters squad instead of mucking around on my own. Sink or swim there for sure.
hmm… tough question. For me, swimming is like golf (was for me)… a constant labor of love forever trying to get that good technique. Also, I’ve fallen from a high level of fitness (for me), so it might take a while.
As for returning fitness, I can only guess based off of my return to cycling after 9 months off… first month was very tough but I managed to ride 3-4x per week. After that month of training to train so to speak, I became very consistent and then the improvements came very quickly. Within a second month I was reasonably fit again and by the end of the third month I was approaching pre-break numbers for 4, 8, 20 min intervals.
Of course, my FTP was still way down, and the ability to go on a 5 hour ride non-existent, but still. Also, I don’t have this issue with running… it’s just always there.
So I’m guessing a month of 3-4x per week to re-learn how to swim and then another couple of months to regain fitness.
Eric,
It will be interesting to see how long it takes until you are back close to your previous times. I predict 4-6 weeks and you’ll be @95%…keep us posted and good luck!
4-6 weeks… I’ll let you know. Metric for success is returning to lane 4 where I used to be (with cups of coffee in lane 3) from the lane 6 where I’m at now.
I find you’ve really just gotta go all in, which it sounds like you’re doing. If I try to get back into it by screwing around with 1000m sessions, it takes forever. If I jump right in with 2500+ meters, I’m dead the first few, but after that I feel great in the water. Maybe it’s 10,000 meters or so before I feel comfortable, whether that’s 3 or 10 sessions. If I let it be 10 sessions, it can majorly wear on your motivation to get to the pool.
95% is like a 1:34.xx 100m for someone who can hold 1:30’s. Which Eric can when fit. So I’d say 2-3 weeks tops to reach 95%. The final 5% might take 3-4 months. And even 6 months ago off zero training and totally out of shape, Eric was swimming in the gulf in Galveston with me at ~ 1:30 pace with no wetsuit (I was in wetsuit). So while he may not have been in a pool in a year, he did at least one swim in Galveston in early April at a reasonable clip.