I’m thinking of entering a 5K OWS this summer. I’ve done their 3K before and it’s pretty low-key and non-intimidating. Small-ish lake with support craft and you loop back near the start several times. No wetsuits allowed. I’m pretty experienced in open water. Any sort of minimum or suggested weekly volume for a 5K swim?
I’m thinking of entering a 5K OWS this summer. I’ve done their 3K before and it’s pretty low-key and non-intimidating. Small-ish lake with support craft and you loop back near the start several times. No wetsuits allowed. I’m pretty experienced in open water. Any sort of minimum or suggested weekly volume for a 5K swim?
Rambler, you’ve done the 3 km version of the race you’re training for…
seems like you’re the one with the most first hand knowledge…
do the same basic training for the 5km as for the 3 km but increase the length of your long swims by approx 66% 
I was doing about 10,000 yards/week with a longest of maybe 3200. It didn’t feel like enough.
If you really wanna race it and be competetive you better be comfortable of swimming a 5k main set in training and do it several times. How much training it takes is hard to say. I can do it on 12km/week. But this is after 1 year of consistant 10k+ weeks. Like 4-5 missed practices total. Consistancy and hard work is key, ymmv.
I just wanted to add, you guys are crazy. 5k…swimming…???
I coach a masters team and it is mostly triathletes training for a Ironman distance swim and less. I’m race director for two 5k swims and 10k swim each year. I train a couple guys for 25k and longer swims.
The workouts that I post each week of what we do on the team would be a good place to start in terms of volume. We usually get in around 15-18k a week. There are typically 4 practices a week that I post. I would add in one to two more days a week where you swim around 2000 of mixed warm-up and short, easy sets. That would be a good place to start.
If you have any questions, let me know.
Tim
If you want to just finish, then you probably already can based on your current experience/training. 3 to 5 is not that much a jump really. Especially when the environment sounds quite friendly.
However, if you want to race it then you’ll probably need to add some work as some of the other posters have suggested.
Hope this helps.
I’m thinking of entering a 5K OWS this summer. I’ve done their 3K before and it’s pretty low-key and non-intimidating. Small-ish lake with support craft and you loop back near the start several times. No wetsuits allowed. I’m pretty experienced in open water. Any sort of minimum or suggested weekly volume for a 5K swim?
Tortuga race looks cool but I cannot for the life of me find on your website WHERE your event is… ?
Just re-read and thought I could add a little more. This volume is not really that much for a MOP OW swimmer. If you can up it to 4 x 5k sessions per week, keeping some intensity and pace work in there, not just long miles, it will help. 20k/week is still quite low volume for the genuinely fast folks (those who can do an OW 5km < 60min) but its enought to help the rest of us improve. How your program works is also important. Too many long sets (ie >500m/yds) are not going to be as helpful as say, 100 or 200s done on a good interval using the pool clock. All volume is worthy but hard aerobic work pays off much more so.
I was doing about 10,000 yards/week with a longest of maybe 3200. It didn’t feel like enough.
The race is outside of Houston in Lake Conroe.
Thanks all! You have confirmed my suspicion, I’m not swimming enough.
FWIW i do 5ks a couple times a year and hovering around 10K a week i felt pretty good in my last one. all my swims are OWS so YMMV. I also don’t care about placing (but the pool is shallow here and i almost always podium…). i really only look to better my time, so, again YMMV. I have a couple threads here on 5K and 10K swims also.