This year I really have made an honest effort to imrpove my swim race pace across all distnaces. After a 1:00:17 IMAZ swim debut in 2007 and a Half IM PR of 29:14 at Vineman 70.3 in 2008, I saw my Half times back in the 30:xx range in 2009 and a dissapointing 1:01:42 at IMAZ. The single best thing I did starting this year was to simply swim a lot more in training. It’s a truism in swimming just as it is in run/bike, usually more is better and for me that’s meant swimming almost 280,000 yards year to date.
But I still needed to swim 'faster" as well. One of Gary’s posts discussed a highr turnover and shortening the pull to avoid the weaker portions of the pull. So I began to train myself to increase turnover without sacraficing RPE. It was a bit tough at first, but I found I acclimated to the higher turnover, shorter pull and felt very comfortable from an energy expenditure stand point. With this in mind, I took to the water last weekend and swam a very comfortable 28:53 Half IM at elevation and felt great. my take away is that assuming you have a strong, efficient pull, good head down, hips up, swimming “downhill” body position, increasing turnover and a slightly shorter pull can be trained to be comfortable as well as fast.