I’ve bitten off more than I can chew this year stepping up from my typical Sprint distance exclusive calendar to a 70.3 end of season. I’ts roughly 7 weeks away and it just hit me I’m going to have to swim 1900M. The swim leg, as with most AGer athletes, is my weakness. I am doing a substantial shift in my training calendar to allow for:
More frequent swim sessions (4-5 per week)
Longer repeats (400/500/600s vs 50/100/200s)
I’m just curious if anybody out in ST land has a good progressive set of sessions I can use to get myself prepared for this. My typical sessions now are 2500M (2x a week) and a 3500M longer sessions 1x a week. I’m going to through in 1-2 shorter “touch” sessions just to keep my feel for the water sharp throughout the process. These would be 1700-1900M total.
Am I on the right track with the above mentioned tweaks or do you think I need to take other things into consideration?
Others will chime in with their thoughts, (and I’m no coach) but just glancing at your plan I think #1 is good, but I don’t think #2 is necessary (unless from a strictly mental “I can do the distance” perspective, and even then you could do a longer swim 3 weeks out just to do it). Lots of us train for 70.3s on a steady diet of 100 and 200 repeats, sometimes 300s in there and rarely 400 or above. Probably do just a handful of 500s and maybe 1 or 2 600s all season
one of my go to sets for 70.3 is 15 x 100 at a sendoff pace that allows me to swim each 100 within a couple seconds of eachother on about :10 rest.
One of the reasons for #2 is pacing. I feel like I pace like crap so I’m trying to see the difference between my 100/200s vs my 400/500s. Trying to find a drop off rate so I can get a proper pace that I can hold through to the finish. Currently I suck at pacing the 750M swim of the sprint events I do because in all my training I have done, like you, 100s and 200s.
With walls, push offs, rest intervals I just don’t feel like I can hold my pool paces in open water with the variables there. I’ve also discovered I’m very upper body weak (an area I’ll be focusing on in the off season). I’m less of an expert than you I imagine though so perhaps all these things are just making me over complicate things.
I think I get a better feel for pacing if I can do the 15 100s within a couple seconds of eachother. If you can’t hold that pace, you aren’t pacing correctly. Now for IM distance I go longer and play more games, but HIM is only 21 x 100 so you are pretty much there. Add taper, a wetsuit perhaps, drafting, etc. and adjust the pace accordingly
about 4 weeks out, I’d do 20 x 100 on an interval that gives you :05 - :10 rest. Do that once a week.
in the weeks between now and 4 weeks out, I’d do 8 x 300 alternating easy 300, fast 300 on an interval that gives you :30 rest. Do that once a week. Most triathletes can’t change pace well, and it’s important to be able to pick up the pace if you want to close a gap and grab the next pack of feet. I have a 30-40 second differential between my fast and easy 300s.
those are sort of my golden sets for a fast HIM swim.
My typical sessions now are 2500M (2x a week) and a 3500M longer sessions 1x a week
If you can do this and are doing this consistently then you’ll be able to complete the half swim.
The question now becomes how much faster do I actually want to get for the swim between now and then.
I chimed in there. While I agree for swimming it’s not essential (8 year olds can fly in the water) I think being able to snap through the PULL with varying levels of power can prove to be an asset for a swimmer in development. I’m pro strength work even if it’s controversial.
What HIM? More expert fish than I have already chimed in but you seem to already be on the right track. Sounds like you’re already putting in the work and now adding some more swims to be sure. If you want something to assist in pacing you can try the finis tempo trainer. You can set it to beep every X seconds so if you want to pace 25yd pool length at 25 seconds you set it at 25 seconds and with it in your swim cap you can tell if you’re going to fast or not. No looking at clock. Just swim.
It’s Multisport Canada’s Barrelman. I’ve heard there are guide wires in the flat water centre, so sighting will be mostly a non-issue. It’s also a fairly controlled environment so it should be calm conditions.
I’ve done an Olympic once and the swim is almost as long but it was terrible time. It was my first and only non-wetsuit swim and it was 33:00. I know I’m a better swimmer than that but I paced it poorly and slugged my way home in the final 400-500M.
I’d like to hit a HIM time of about the same (1:40-1:45/100M) but evenly paced. I can hit these times in a 15x100M set comfortably but not easily.
