I have a great coach and I basically just do what he tells me to do and it has worked great.
However, I’m always curious to learn and hence I have spent time reading and investigating and I think I have somewhat understood the basic concepts of run and bike training. However, swim training for ironman is still a black box. I know that technique is a huge component and that workouts should also allow to build technique. So my questions are:
what are the basic principles of a good ironman swim training program for a 1:05-1:10 (h:min) ironman swimmer and what would the key workouts of a week be?
A bit related to 1 are there some bread and butter workouts for swimming (eg like 2x20 sweetspot on the bike or a 30-40 min comfortably hard run)?
Any recommended reading (like Daniels running formula is for running)?
This may not really help you, but the answer to your first question really depends, I think, on whether you’re a swimmer or not. If you are, then getting to that target window is more about doing little more than building to the distance and figuring out how to pace yourself. If you’re not, then it’s much more about technique drills plus endurance training.
One of my pet peeves is that very frequently technique is not taught, or if it is it is taught at the same time as endurance is being acquired. I had this as a kid, and I see it with my kids in their swimming club. In my view technique is about doing the right thing, slowly and carefully until the muscle memory picks it up, then upping the pace over time so that you don’t revert to bad form. Personally I see little to no benefit in doing yardage with tired arms, because more than likely all you’re doing is reinforcing bad form.
I’m much more a swimmer/cyclist than a runner/cyclist. I had been away from the pool for 13 years or so until earlier this year so I need to work on endurance and polish up (!) technique. I used (loosely - I skipped a massive bunch of sessions, especially in the second ten weeks, and never did more than two sessions a week) Don Fink’s Ironfit training plan to get the endurance. For me, the best technique workout was to use hard paddles at no more than 60% of tempo and strength. That helped me a lot work out what my hands were doing in the water through the stroke, and allowed me to experiment with things like glide, shoulder roll, and so on. Doing things slowly was key. I liken it a lot to skiing, tbh. They’re both dynamic balance sports where timing and economy of movement are crucial. Obviously in both it helps to be able to work out what your body is doing, and what it needs to do.
I am not a real swimmer, and usually go 1:03 wetsuit, 1:06 no wetsuit. My go to IM workouts are:
Build up to 11x400y on 6:30 alternating with paddles/buoy (~6:00) and without (~6:15 and quick change to put on paddles and buoy).Build up to 4250 straight swimBuild up to 10x100y on 1:30 (~ 1:25 to eventually “touch & go”). Once I get to 10x100 on 1:30, in following workouts I’ll keep seeing how many I can do staying on 1:308x200, descend 1-4, 5-8 on 3:30 maybe 3:10, 3:05, 3:00, 2:55
These would be warm-up sets for any decent high school swimmer, but its enough to do what I need. I swim 2X week also.
I swam 1:06 at IMMT, so MOP. Most of my swim workouts were in the 3500-4500 yd range with a few 5000 yd swims as well. My coach had me doing main sets of 40x100, 8x500, 10x400, 10x200 & 40x50. 500’s were generally touching around 7:30 and for my 100’s the send off was 1:35 or 1:40 - in around 1:24-1:25.
I’d say the single most important thing is to get out of the IM swim feeling fresh and ready for the bike. Unless your looking to podium in your AG it’s largely irrelevant whether you swim 1:05 or 1:10, far more important that you exit the water having expended as little energy as possible.
My advice would be to focus on swimming 3 x per week and if possible 3K-4K per session. Lots of intervals e.g. 15x200, 10x300, 8x400 and focus on swimming these at close to IM pace with short rest intervals (10-15 secs rest between intervals).
A session I like is 5x800 as 800 swim, 800 pull, 2x400, 4x200, 8x100 (all with 10-15 secs rest between intervals). Swim the 800’s and 400’s @ IM pace or slightly above, the 200’s & 100’s at just below IM pace.
I swam in college, and this is the first season I’ve been able to swim as fast as when I swam 6 days a week. I think the key has been not to focus in aerobic endurance, since you get a ton of that on the bike and run training. I’ve simplified my week’s training into 2 key workouts, one that is Ironman pace and distance, another that is faster and shorter-
6 x 700 @ 10 min, descend from 1:21/100 to 1:18/100
20 x 100 @1:30, best sustainable effort
No real great explanation for why this has worked so well for me, except that the longer set teaches me to swim comfortably for 4200 yards without just slugging through, while the short set gives me 2000 yards of faster than comfortable swimming to push the pace.
I’d say the single most important thing is to get out of the IM swim feeling fresh and ready for the bike. Unless your looking to podium in your AG it’s largely irrelevant whether you swim 1:05 or 1:10, far more important that you exit the water having expended as little energy as possible.
This is key. After having come within seconds of breaking an hour at my two previous IMs, I really wanted to do it this year at IMMT. I didn’t kill myself to do it, but I worked harder than I should have and within minutes of getting on the bike I could already feel it in my quads. I missed Kona by 2.5 minutes while several that beat me swam 10+ minutes slower.
Anyway, I swim twice a week with 4000 and 5000 yard sessions. I do up to 40x100 on 1:30, 30x100 on 1:25, and longer sets like 2000 straight. As I get closer to my event I do 4200 straight or 4x1000. Another thing I did this year that really helped was swimming in a LCM pool. It is a very different workout from a SCY pool since you don’t get the advantage of pushing off the wall as much and you just swim longer without breaks.
When you guys are doing 40x100 how are you keeping track of how many 100s you’ve done? Are you working it out in your head based on the pace clock, using a lap watch, or is there some other nifty way to keep track?
Any recommended reading (like Daniels running formula is for running)?
SwimSmooth seem to have great success with triathletes: http://www.swimsmooth.com/. There’s lot of free articles on there and on the accompanying blog.
I’ve bought their book and the DVD on the catch, and both were worthwhile investments for me.
I haven’t actually done this but I’ve heard of using pennies, just have a pile at the wall, and push one over every time.
I did this years 3800 LCM straight at an outdoor pool with no clock so I just counted up to 1000. Just before my turn I look at my watch under water and I know about what my split should be so that tells me if I’ve counted correctly. Do that 3x then another 800. It was also useful to see how I faded in the last section.
In an indoor pool with a wall clock I can see while swimming, I start with the big hand at 0. I know which hundred I should be on based on the position of the clock. I’ll usually go around 1:25 pace so I count back 5 seconds for each hundred and look for that position on the clock to verify which hundred I’m on. So for instance if I’m approaching 400, I know 1:30 pace would be 6:00, so for 1:25 the big hand should be around the 40 mark since I’d just done 4x100 at 1:25, and for the next one it should be around the 5. Then 30, then 55, then 20, etc. Once I get to the point where the big hand is coming back around to the top for the even numbered hundred, I just start over and if it’s a really long set then I just count how many times I’ve had to “reset” back at the top.
I continued investigating, among other sources from the swimsmooth book. My key learning is that long course triathlon swim training is based on these principles:
Swim as frequent as possible as many meters as possible. Not really a light ball moment but it seems to be very important to get into the water more than a few times a week - if possible and unless you swam as a kid.
5 main types of workouts where the first 2 should be bread and butter of the program but okay to mix in elements from 3 and 4
threshold/Critical Swim Speed (CSS): mainsets of 1,5-2 km. Reps can be 100-500m but pace is constant (CSS pace) per 100m. Rest 10-15 sec per 100m. 2-3 sessions per week (CSS can be tested and calculated but let us call it hard but comfortable)
endurance: Long swim days of 50-80% more volume than CSS swim days. Pace is a bit slower per 100 than CSS (moderate, not easy) but rest is short (~5 sec per 100m) Probably one session per week.
speed: Short reps of 25-100m faster than CSS (hard and uncomfortable) but with 30-60 sec rest between reps
technique: focused on drills
active recovery
Okay to use paddles, band and buyo for some of the CSS and endurance work. There is a lot of different opinions on what “some” is so will not start that discussion here
Is my view on the above - especially point 2 - correct?
