After a brief stint doing tris a decade ago, I stopped in favor of bike racing. Now looking to get back into them. One of the reasons I stopped doing them was because my swimming was atrocious even after about a year and half doing the Total Immersion stuff. But I never got a coach which even at the time I knew was a mistake.
So has anyone gone from being a very poor swimmer to at least mediocrity? By poor I mean bottom 10% when my run/bike were often top 20% maybe even 10% on occasion.
1st tri: 2002 Boulder Peak (Olympic): 36 minutes
2004 Boulder Peak: 34 minutes
2005 1st 1/2 IM: 36 minutes
2006 1st IM: 1:08
2007 St Anthony’s (Olympic): 23:00
2007 IMLP : 1:00
I have not seen or heard anyone improving swim times overnight. For me it just took very consistent time in the pool with lots of drills and volume with some speed work mixed in close to races. I neve put in huge volume weeks like you hear on ST sometimes, but I have done 10 to 20 K consistently since at least the beginning of 2004. I was always strong in the water but never very fast.
Get a good swim coach you trust for periodic tweaks and get in the pool.
Oh yeah, I forgot one detail…
You must buy the smallest speedo that fits your body.
Two years ago I couldn’t keep my face in the water or swim 25yds straight (mostly b/c I couldn’t keep my face in the water). This week I swam 3,250 yds on my way to a 2.4 mi Ironman swim. I’d like to think that’s pretty good improvement.
This is my 5th year racing triathlons and my swimming improvement had leveled off this year. my best 1500m split was 25:55 and my best 1.2 split was 31:44 (most likely a minute or so short). this summer i started working with a swim coach at the YMCA once a week and my swimming has improved big time. at my last half i swam a 30:57 compared to a 34something the year before. in a week i’m doing an olympic distance race and am shooting for a sub 23min swim. i think working with a coach would be the best way to improve your swimming times. i’m a completely different swimmer now than i was even in the beginning of the summer.
Read my tri shorts-swim stud post of today.
I’m usually in the top 5% overall on both the bike and run but more towards mediocrity on the swim. I have got significantly faster in the water in last two weeks and will see how that translates in a 400-meter race swim in a sprint tri on Sunday. Last year I was a very sucky 10:12 but I’m hoping to be a less sucky sub-9. I will be one happy camper if I am.
That’s awesome improvement! $64Million question - How did you do it?
Sean Cusack
1st tri ever back in the early 90’s: 400m swim in 16:14ish
fast forward to the Pacific Masters Swimming Valentine’s Day Meet in SF this last February. That in itself shocked me as I NEVER thought I’d enter a swim meet (didn’t learn to swim until I was 20). I swam a few events and in spectacular flame out fashion went 1:01/1:14 for my 200 free.
I started in tri about 3 years ago. I had not swum since I was 10 yrs old(35now), just last week I completed a 7.5 mile open water fund raising swim in 4hrs 40mins. Not the fastest ever, but I thought I would never be able to cross the lake a few years ago. Over the winter I swam 2 miles every tues/thurs. in the H.S pool and then in May started in the lake 2-3 miles 4-5x a week. I did not do much speed work just mileage and time in the water.
My friend Therese, star high school basketball player. She swam one six week summer league session in junior high, then followed the call of the gym. Up until her junior year, where she got into a screaming match with the varsity coach the fisrt week of practice, walked off the court, and decided she wanted to try swimming for a fall sport instead.
Three weeks after getting into the pool, she swims a 50 yard free at a meet, turns to the other girls on the relay and says “Is 27.2 a good time for a fifty?” At which time we smile as we tell her how horribly she sucks. She got down to a low 26 for a 50 that year, and a high 58 for a 100. Then she spent the rest of the school year playing volleyball and softball, spent the summer playing travel softball, and then her senior year in the pool she ended up being a big reason why her 200 free relay team picked up a private school All-American award for that race.