I am for sure not a good swimmer so maybe that is the root cause but wanted to check if anyone has similar experience and what you do about it.
– Sunday 3 pm I do a 2,5k swim - after a weekend with lots of running and biking. Feel very good in the water, able to maintain decent form. Overall, just a pleasure to swim.
– Monday 8 pm I do a 3k swim - feel ackward the water, cannot get it flowing at all.
Difference like night and day. Sunday I loved swimming, Monday I hated it like the plaque. I can also have good and bad bike and running days but the difference is not that extreme.
– Does that happen do you?
– Any idea about root causes (maybe I was more exhausted from the running and biking Monday than I was Sunday)?
– What do you do about it, if anything? Do you just accept some days are better than others.
Monday at 5 am → 300 on 5:45 minute starts → struggle for the 2100 meter workout
Wednesday at 6 pm → 300 on 5:30 starts - > Challenging, but doable for 2400 meters.
Friday at 5 am → back to the Monday feeling.
Monday is after Sunday’s long run. Wednesday is after an 11 hour work day. Friday is after a 5.5 mile run (Thursday night), so previous activity is not a factor for me
Everyone is different. My problem is early morning activity, which sucks because Triathlon swimming is an early morning activity. You just have to learn to deal with it and move on.
Everyone has their off days. How many times per week do you swim? Hopefully its not just Sun/Mon. If so, I’d recommend getting more frequent in the water and spreading it out to not be back to back days. Personally, some days I feel great in the pool right away, sometimes it takes 2k to feel like I’m in good form. It depends on a lot of things, but gets easier with more experience. Just don’t let it get you down.
Happens to us all. Fatigue, nutrition, motivation, sleep, caffeine, etc. all play a role. Chalk it up to a bad swim, ignore it, and move on with your life/ training. You’ll inevitably have more great days, average days, and bad days. If your bad days happen more often than not, you may need to look deeper into your recovery program.
Having swam most of my life I’ve dealt with this for just as long. After nearly 35 years I still haven’t figured out any rhyme or reason to it. One thing I’ve learned is that for at least myself its important to ge through those “off” days and not bail on the workout.
Happened to me yesterday. I lasted all of 1k and i packed it in it was so bad. Realized it was a combination of poor nutrition for the day and too much running on the weekend. We’ll see how it goes today.
I’ve swam my entire life and this happens to every swimmer. Ignore it and move on. It happens to everyone. They key is to not quit on the workout and make the best of it.
My friends and I have had this discussion a few times. We have come to the consensus that in your weakest of the three sports we have more extreme days then in our strongest. Running is my strength and it seems that no matter how good or bad I feel pace is within a couple of sec/km, but when I get in the pool those bad days are UGLY and the good days I never want to stop. My swimmer friend is the opposite and her runs have a lot of variation where her swims are pretty much the same day in and day out.
I’ve found that the more often I swim the more consistent I am, and on the really bad days I will add in more kick (sometimes even with fins if it is a really bad day) or pull.
I have noticed the same thing. Running also my strength and cycling is my weakness.
Even hungover, I can go run at almost the same speed - it just hurts more. There are plenty of days that I get on the bike and just feel like I can’t put any power to the pedals.
I have been reading a running book and they talk about the concept of “physical confidence”. Not thinking you can do something, but your body actually knowing you can. I know that no matter how crappy I feel, I can go run 7-minute miles for a couple of hours. I think I should be able to go put out 200+ watts for a good stretch of time, but there is always a twinge of doubt that I’ll crack.
I’ve swam my entire life and this happens to every swimmer. Ignore it and move on. It happens to everyone. They key is to not quit on the workout and make the best of it.
I agree with the happens to everyone. If you have a job, and other workouts your body is being stressed. That’s part of the deal. I try to take a mental positive from every workout. On a “tough” day I tell myself that I did this or that which given how tired I was - was good. For example I did my toughest swim in a long long time yesterday 9x300 and decended. The last one was fastest - this rarely happens, so, I was happy about that and I am recovering from a cold, so I went away thinking “wow, how much faster could I have gone w/o a cold?”
That said. On rare occasions, stopping a workout might indeed be the correct thing to do. Injury/illness isn’t worth it. (how do I know that? Well… I’m injured because I “needed” to finish a particular track workout). Stupid trophy number (so high nobody can count that high)
I’m the exact opposite of you two & just like KJMCawesome’s friend…a swimmer that can reliably push out yardage & times but if I’m having a bad day on my own feet - fuhgeddaboudit.
I can only run 7min/miles in my sleep when I’m dreaming. But swim form, yardage & times can be obtained regardless of how ugly the form may be on a bad day.
To the OP - it happens in every sport & to everyone. It is the weaker ones where we need to prove it to ourselves that we ARE putting the hay in the barn. If you swim 5x/week, you’ve run into this before. Keep soldiering on, you’ll be a fish again soon.
I’m the exact opposite of you two & just like KJMCawesome’s friend…a swimmer that can reliably push out yardage & times but if I’m having a bad day on my own feet - fuhgeddaboudit.
I can only run 7min/miles in my sleep when I’m dreaming. But swim form, yardage & times can be obtained regardless of how ugly the form may be on a bad day.
To the OP - it happens in every sport & to everyone. It is the weaker ones where we need to prove it to ourselves that we ARE putting the hay in the barn. If you swim 5x/week, you’ve run into this before. Keep soldiering on, you’ll be a fish again soon.
OP here…unfortunately I was never a fish. On a good day, I am swimming like an octupus. On a bad day, like a rock
like some of the other fish, it happens all the time. did you get a massage in between? Post massage the arms/shoulders feel great but not enough tension in them to get moving and I feel awful, takes at least 1 day to get the mojo back. Sleep, no stretching, bad food, too hard on the bike/run, all are factors that can lead to an off day.
