Clas Bjorling just did a 56:30 swim. I shared a pool with that guy for a couple of months last northern hemi winter. Undoubtedly the guy is a phenomenal natural athlete, and a scorching runner. But let me tell you that guy is no swimmer. In fact, he started training in my lane and is possibly the only person less naturally buoyant than I am! The guy just relentlessly hammered and hammered (not intensity-wise, but focus-wise) day in day out. First in, last out many days and I’m sure he hasn’t let down since I last saw him.
We always come back to “how fast can I be?”, “how good can I be?” Probably not as fast as Clas on the run. But a sub-60 IM swim at an appropriate IM intensity for most generally fit and reasonably athletic people is, I would say, a matter of time, commitment, and desire. I reckon the same is true for an approx 5:45 bike and an approx 3:45 run.
I am using myself as a test subject and I’ll let you know when I get there.
Good luck to Clas, Mr. A, and the rest of them on the run!
my splits at LP were 63-5:40-3:44. My swim has been neglected severely since this mid 90’s when I actually swam 54 at Roth and 56 at Ironman Canada twice. I agree , for a moderately fit person, log 4 months of 20,000-25,000 m weeks and you are down at 56 or so.
only reason I logged all those swim miles, was I was in grad school and the lab was pretty well upstairs from the pool, so I had to do something while my code was executing through realms of data :-).
I’ve been neglecting my swim the past couple of years to focus on improving my biking. I think that I may be able to rival Clas in terms of the natural tendency to sink to the bottom of the pool. My first 2 IM races (IM Can and Roth) I swam just under 59 minutes off of about 10-11k each week with most of it at a very high intensity. I swam 61 at IM FL in 2003 and 66 (ouch) in Hawaii last year. The fact that the extra couple of hundred kms I was putting on my bike made me way faster for bike and run definitely offsets the slowdown.
Dev, you looked pretty speedy to me last weekend when I thought I was swimming well (better than Peterborough where I came out ahead of you) and saw you ahead of me out of the water
only reason I logged all those swim miles, was I was in grad school and the lab was pretty well upstairs from the pool, so I had to do something while my code was executing through realms of data
Didn’t you have to stay and feed the punch cards?
Just putting in lots of meters won’t help you swim much faster. I think the original poster said it best…“(not intensity-wise, but focus-wise)”. Most on this board think harder = faster. In swimming that isn’t true always.
It does not take 20,000m per week to be a faster swimmer (if it did, I would never get anywhere swimming). It takes dedication to improving your technique. Working with someone who can point out where you suck and where you are good. Then relentless practice from those learning experiences and taking the parts that suck from suck to ok to decent to good to above avgerage to near perfection.
I’ve gone from a 1:02:57 in 2002 to a 52:08 in 2004. The basic reason was I decided swimming was important, and I put in the effort required. Also, I made a mental switch one day that I was a good swimmer rather than a rock. This confidence made it much easier to swim well.
The thing is, while my pool times have improved, they haven’t improved very much. I think I basically got stronger, and therefore more efficient over 3.8k in the open water.
A friend of mine that used to race pro back in 1990-1992 range and used to regularly beat guys like Mark Bates out of the water in Ontario races did the swim as part of a relay in the Half-IM race in Ottawa last week. He beat everyone out of the water by at least a minute without a wetsuit and on “minimal” training. He was telling me that his secret was that when he started swimming he did all of his sets slowly and counted strokes. When he could hit a specific target with minimal strokes and good form then he’d try to speed up the pace a little. He also took way more recovery than most swimmers seem to do to ensure that he could swim efficiently and concentrate on his form rather than falling apart. After all these years, now he tells me
