I’m getting into open water swim racing and want to improve on my times for races from 1.5km to 5km. I’m lucky enough to live by a beautiful lake and have been swimming 4 or 5 times a week in the lake since May. I swim for about 50-60 minutes each time and used a wetsuit at the start and end of the season. The lake is still very swimmable and I’m planning to continue swimming in it for as long as possible, but at some point (probably in another 3 or 4 weeks) I will have to return to the pool. I haven’t swum in a pool since mid-May.
During the winter I should be able to get to the pool 2 or maybe 3 times a week (I’ll also be doing run, bike and row training), so I’m wondering what people would recommend for those sessions. My swim races will all be in lakes, most likely will all be wetsuit swims, will range in distance from 1.5km to 5km. I’m wondering if I should do lots of pull sets (to simulate the feel of wetsuit swimming) and also if there are any training strategies specific to open water swim racing (as opposed to triathlon swimming).
This touches on an issue that gets discussed a lot on ST. I’m guessing a lot of the swim coaches will tell you that you do not need to do long, continuous swimming to prepare for an open water race. Shorter, focused intervals are a more effective form of training, regardless of the event. But I’m not a coach-- or even a very good swimmer-- so take anything I say with a grain of salt.
Yeah, I’ve read lots of threads about preparing for the swim in a triathlon and understand the principal of “skill development” through short intervals that allow you to practice quality strokes to become efficient so that you can be fresh when you start the bike leg. I’m curious as to how open water swim racers train because there is no bike to be fresh for. I need to learn how to swim 2km hard enough that I can make it out of the water, cross the line, and then be done.
I’m assuming swim racers must do some tempo / race pace work over distances approaching goal race distance.
Here’s an article written about one of the top US Open Water Swimmers from the 2016 and 2020 Olympic cycle. The best open water swimmers in the world spend the overwhelming majority of their time in the pool. It’s just a more efficient place to train.
I don’t disagree in general, but for people new or less experienced to OWS, you better practice before race day or else be ready for a potential rude awakening of the myriad things that go wrong on OWS compared to pool.
Once you’re experienced with enough OWS and racing, for sure faster pool = faster OWS for you, but for those with little OWS, you very may hugely underperform or even DNF. (Heck my multi-IM friend who isn’t a bad swimmer just DNF’d last month due to unexpected panic in totally normal conditions, it happens.)
Most of the real good swimmers from my area swim all pool through the week and may do 1 OW session on the weekend. However, others may not do any OW until the day of the race or a freshener a week before the race, as they have swam so much OW through the years.
A difference between OW and tri swimming - you want to be able to empty the tank at the end of the race, whether by sprinting at the end or just building and holding your pace till exhaustion. Tri does not require that.
Some sets to play around with - as many 100s as you can do all best effort on 30 seconds rest. Speed shouldn’t change too much. 5 x 400s finishing the last few faster than the first. A few rounds of 8 x 50 on 15-25 seconds rest (fast as possible) into 300 6-7 out of 10 effort, 100 easy. That is a Mack Morton set.
Previously chronic use of the wetsuit shortened my stroke significantly and made me feel mushy in the middle of my body. I think its probably the case that becoming a better swimmer without a wetsuit means someone becomes a better swimmer overall (including when they put the wetsuit back on). If the focus is just becoming a better wetsuit swimmer, they can improve in that area (no doubt) but give themselves a lower ceiling.
I was responding to the OP who clearly stated that they swam open water 4-5 times a week since May. They are just fine with open water experience.
Adding your own slant to include inexperienced open water swimmers is for a completely different person than the OP and not relevant to my specific answer.
5 x 400 (and similar sets) is the sort of thing I was thinking to try to learn better pacing. I’m so used to trying to save energy during the swim that I think the first area for improvement for me in OWS racing is just learning to push hard from the start and empty the tank by the end of the race.
Would you see value in anything longer than 400s? Like 2 x 1km for example?
Also, do you recommend use of the pull buoy to simulate the floaty feel of the wetsuit? I know that body position is a limiter for me because my wetsuit swim times are so much faster than my non-wetsuit times, so perhaps using a pull buoy is a bad idea?
I mix it up. Swimming long distances in a pool can get really boring. Depending on the length of my swim, I’ll mix up strokes. I swim a 25 yard pool, so on a longer swim I’ll do the first 16 laps via breast stroke, followed by 16 laps backstroke, followed by maybe 50 laps free, followed by 100 butterfly. I try to keep a certain pace, play with my breathing patterns, and watch my form. On a BRICK day, I might swim a harder 40 laps free, followed by a run or bike.
I’m pretty comfortable in the water. Like I said, I live by a lake and probably average around 50-70 open water swims every year. I actually do way better in OWS racing than I’ve ever done in the pool and frequently find myself beating people who are far better pool swimmers than me. The power of the wetsuit!
On your pacing strategy, you may be someone who does better by negative splitting. It is a peculiarly satisfying to let people go off ahead of you and then reel them in gradually, like Jonas did to Tadej early in the Tour this year. Something to experiment with.
If you can just manage to hold your good pace, and not vary it too much, that can be a really good way to race as well. Two of the very best OW swimmers here - both very accomplished swimmers - have different strategies. One has more top end speed, so tries to get out fast and in front of everyone, to control the pace. He then uses that top speed to try to play games at turning buoys and discourage people from over taking him. The other doesn’t have his top end, but he has more endurance, so if he just gets into his rhythm right away and finds someone faster to draft, he likes to race that way and hangs onto that speed at the end when people are dropping.
For longer swims, I do think there is some merit in doing them from time to time, but I wouldn’t do them as all hard. I would try to work on negative splitting those, where you take a peak at the pace clock on your turns and you finish hard in the last couple of 100. I did a 2km last week, but I hadn’t done a 2km swim for about 6-8 weeks before that. If you are falling off the pace too much and its just using your best effort to hold onto your pace, then that kind of head space is prob best left for racing and you spend time training swimming just a bit faster but on more rest and broken up. Or you do your 1km longer swims every month or so and try to figure out if you are taking few strokes per lap, and your stroke integrity stays good till the end of the repetition.
I am a bit against pull buoy at the moment, as it teaches you to switch off your core and just use the float power to stay up. You can swim with paddles, and no pull buoy, as that gives you more resistance on the arms and shoulders, without turning off your body position muscles. Though others pull a lot and have really good results with it, its just not something I am working into my mix at the moment.
What I think is that if you can teach your hips and core to naturally do that floaty feeling, it gives you an advantage when you put on the wetsuit.
Though if all your races are wetsuit, you may be in a different position to me. All my races are in the brief.
Does he have a multi decade swim history? Did he become a faster swimmer due to many years of swim squad training, and is it because of his history that he doesn’t need to train so much? Does he do these sessions described because he is now time crunched or just can’t be bothered doing regular swim training sessions?
Context is everything.
Sounds like he maybe succeeds in spite of the way he trains. Unfortunately I do not have a background in swimming, although I have about 15 years of tri training as an adult. I certainly can’t get anywhere near 1:15/100! One of my goals for next year is to try to break 23 minutes at the 1.5k lake swim race (I went 23:20 this year), which is more like 1:30/100.
I do enjoy hearing how other people train though; I just watched a documentary about a guy training for Norseman and one of his swim sets was 100 x 100 @1:30, which is another training set that I won’t be copying, but does give me information I can use. I might be able to work up to 20 x 100, for example.
100x100s is a bit of a Xmas / New Year tradition for swimmers. Only truly wild do it as a regular training set. When I’ve done it we break it up into sets of 20 and vary the time rep - sometimes slower than 130 sometimes faster. Brenton from effortless swimming said last year he did that set long course meters all 1:15 pace on 1:30. Pretty decent for old people swimming if thats true.