Has anyone participated in the swim around key west? Either the original or the FKCC directed one? How did you like it and do you have any advice about it?
What was your swim fitness like before entering the race and how did you wind up doing?
I did it (sort of) a few years ago. I was on a two person team. I won’t go into the story (nothing to do with the race or it’s organization) but we DNFed. Anyways, I had a blast except for the dnf. My swim fitness was good- doing at least 5 swims a week-can’t remember my total weekly at my peak. I did several 6 milers prior to the race. Make sure you practice feeding in the water. Are you thinking of doing it solo? I plan on doing it again soon. I have unfinished business there. 
I did this race a couple of times when I was really young (12 and 13 years old). Back then it was The Victor Swim Around Key West. My mom also did it butterfly (not joking!!) and my both my mom and sister have won the race. The second year I did it I swam it in a 4:06 and was 5th overall. For test sets in swimming I think I was around 30x100s on 1:15. Not sure though, this was a long time ago. I was and still am a very strong puller. This is huge in long distance open water swimming. A couple of valuable tips if you do the race:
- It is HOT!! Be prepared to swim in 95 degree waters.
- Make sure your kayaker knows where to go. My mom took and unnecessary detour one year.
- Somewhere towards the end of the race (Cow’s Key Channel I believe) the race was known to have incredibly strong currents for about a mile. I am not sure if the course is exactly the same or not but if it is, be prepared to swim hard for 1 mile late in the race.
Good luck! It is fun!!
spouse did it in 2007 (Welzien’s race). w/o a doubt, the most memorable race experience had by all involved. there were 3 races (Welzien, FKCC and another RD) going on at the same time and the stormy weather at the start capsized a handful of kayaks (including mine) and sank a 17’ power boat. the coast guard tried to cancel the races but couldn’t get all the swimmers out of the water, including the two i supported. by the time we hit the leeward side of KW there were blue skies over our heads. defiant swimmers did indeed finish the 12.5-mi swim but since the coast guard pulled the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place guys out at mile 11, no official results are listed for this year.
definitely pick a strong kayaker (unless you have a power boat) or support crew. spouse swam several hours a day in an endless pool to bring up swim fitness and finished slightly under 6 hours. its a very long day for sure but quite a personal journey. good luck!
Well I am currently swimming 4 to 5 times a week at about 3000 yards a workout… I know this isn’t enough and I going to up the yardage, but would you say there is a minimum that I should be able to do in practices that would signal I am able to participate? I’m thinking of doing it as a two person team…
How much does the current help?
I would try to increase yardage significantly. You should probably be doing about 5k per practice with one long swim (ideally in the ocean) per week. The long swim should probably be about 5 miles if you are doing half of the 12.5 mile race. Also, you should be doing a lot of pull sets and minimal kicking sets. How are you in the heat? The water temp’s can make the race pretty hard. I trained in Miami in a pool without an effective cooling system so that was fine for me. I live in CO now and would have a really hard time adjusting to the water temperature. The current is a big help but there are parts of the race where you will be against current as well. Since you are doing it as a team it really depends on which part of the swim you are doing.
How would you suggest I increase my yardage significantly from my 3000 yard workouts? What is an acceptable amount of increase to get to where I need to be? Do I need rest weeks, or weeks where I cut back and then build again??
I would try to build to 28,000 yards per week split into 5 sessions. 4 sessions per week should be about 5,000 and once a week you should target a 5 mile long swim in the ocean. Like any other sport you should build slowly to get to this point. The 10% rule is a good rule of thumb. So, you shouldn’t swim more than 110% of what you swam the previous week. Also, like in other sports, it pays off to have a lighter week every 4th week. I would recommend doing an ocean race/time trial at the end of every easy week to see where you are. This is assuming you are racing half of the 12.5 mi race.
Can’t stress this enough: practice taking in fluids and food while swimming. It’s harder than you think. There was a good article in the March 2012 issue of Swimmer magazine about this
I just swam the 2 person relay of 12.5 Mile Swim Around Key West.
It was alot of fun, neither of us had swam that far or in a simular event. We learned alot and would be much faster next time. I swam 2x per week at Masters for 7 weeks from when we signed up for race and did 1 longer swim per week as well. My longest swim was 7,100 yds. My buddy just swam 3 x masters. Conditioning wise we were totally fine though I have been doing long course tri for many years and have a good base. It was hard to take in nutrition while you tread water for sure, we took in much less than planned but it was enough. I did the first half of the swim and my time was 2:26. He did the second half and our total time was 5:08. We came in 23rd overall and missed 3rd place relay by 7 seconds. 2nd place was not much ahead of that. The team behind us was 30 minutes back. If only we had…
Ha, we just wanted to survive having no idea what to expect. Having a solid time was a bonus.
We had a kayaker and a chase boat, chase boat was way too big for this event we should have brought a much smaller one for sure. Race hotel was really bad, I should have left at check in and went to better hotel but part of the adventure I suppose. No shuttle to start from race hotel and no bathrooms at race (they were locked until first wave started). Race planning information was lacking and awards were left at hotel and they had to go get them and come back…I would do it again, just expect Key West laid back approach and be very self sufficient regarding every detail. We planned to go diving the next day but the winds blew at 25mph so we bailed on that idea and were grateful that did not happen during our swim as whitecaps suck for that long of a swim!
It is a fun adventure and worth doing…at least once.
I just swam the 2 person relay of 12.5 Mile Swim Around Key West.
It was alot of fun, neither of us had swam that far or in a simular event. We learned alot and would be much faster next time. I swam 2x per week at Masters for 7 weeks from when we signed up for race and did 1 longer swim per week as well. My longest swim was 7,100 yds. My buddy just swam 3 x masters. Conditioning wise we were totally fine though I have been doing long course tri for many years and have a good base. It was hard to take in nutrition while you tread water for sure, we took in much less than planned but it was enough. I did the first half of the swim and my time was 2:26. He did the second half and our total time was 5:08. We came in 23rd overall and missed 3rd place relay by 7 seconds. 2nd place was not much ahead of that. The team behind us was 30 minutes back. If only we had…
Ha, we just wanted to survive having no idea what to expect. Having a solid time was a bonus.
Big Cat - Great job!!! So, if you went 2:26 for 6.25 miles, that’s an overall pace of 1:20/100 yds in open water with no turns, and including stops for refueling, which is quite an impressive pace for 11,000 yds. What were your baseline intervals in the pool for your long sets??? I would guess you must have been doing 20 x 100 scy on around 1:15, coming in at 1:10 or better???
Again, great job!!!
There was current at times and sometimes it was very strong assistance without which my time would be much slower. I cruise long course at 1:30 per100 which is ironman pace for me. when i go 1:26 takes much more effort, all out sprint under 1’. Swim times are faster with salt water and the current which pushes you strongly at times. Fortunately they had a ton of rain for weeks leading into race which dropped water temp from 85 to 80 degrees which helped a lot as well.
There was current at times and sometimes it was very strong assistance without which my time would be much slower. I cruise long course at 1:30 per100 which is ironman pace for me. when i go 1:26 takes much more effort, all out sprint under 1’. Swim times are faster with salt water and the current which pushes you strongly at times. Fortunately they had a ton of rain for weeks leading into race which dropped water temp from 85 to 80 degrees which helped a lot as well.
Ah, I see…but still an impressive swim. The cooler water T was a real bonus. What were the air temps, was it mostly sunny, and what time did you start???
Very sunny, highs well into 90’s. had to be at beach by 6:45, swim started at 8am. Killer was waiting at beach post swim for awards which finally started at 4:30pm with little shade and very high temps. Was wickedly dehydrated next day despite trying to hydrate after the race. Very happy with my swim.
Very sunny, highs well into 90’s. had to be at beach by 6:45, swim started at 8am. Killer was waiting at beach post swim for awards which finally started at 4:30pm with little shade and very high temps. Was wickedly dehydrated next day despite trying to hydrate after the race. Very happy with my swim.
Well, at least the worst heat was after the race. Thanks for all the info, I may do that race in the next year or two.