I have not yet attempted the Ironman distance. I’ve done a couple of HIMs and have my 3rd in October. But next year I am planning on doing the full distance. I’m not a fast swimmer but have no issues completing the HIM distance swim usually close to MOP and don’t really have concerns for that for the full distance.
At the pool yesterday morning, I was part way through a session and heard two other swimmers who were there before me finish up and one of them say “2 hours. Now that’s how you train for an Ironman” And I’m pretty sure this was just a straight 2 hour swim but their discussion and that I was 30 minutes into my swim when they said this and they were just doing lap after lap. No intervals
Just wonder is this “normal” for Ironman swim training? Is there a point to swimming 2 hours because clearly one shouldn’t be in the water that long in the race.
that’s not how I’d ever recommend anyone train for an IM. Sure it’s a mental test, but swimming is 90% technique 10% fitness. A former Div 1 swimmer could jump in a lake and cruise a 2.4 miles swim with no training at all. They’d be sore as hell the next day arms would be dead that last 1/2 mile, but go under 60’ easy. Why? because they can cruise 1:30/100m with almost no effort because they technique is so good.
You can beat yourself to death swimming 20k meters a week, but if its’ all long slow swims, you’ll gain little in technique. Intervals force you to make yourself more efficient, work on technique before you get fatigued and slide back to bad habits.
When I did my first IM, my longest continuous swim was 2500y, and that’s because I just felt good one day in warm-up and kept going. My other 4 swims that week were all intervals, the longest swim as 500y continuous. My longest open water swim was 1.2 miles.
When I swam Kona the next year, my longest pool swim the next year, was a 1000M TT. I rarely did more than 3000M in a single session, but consistently swam 3-4x a week. Longest OWS was 50’…and that was just because I felt good that morning and kept going. I put in some intervals and surges though. My 2nd longest swim was 45’ one morning from the pier during race week. But I stopped a couple times to take in the scenery.
Bottom line, completely unnecessary and for the same 2 hours time, I could give them a workout that would leave them crying for their mother and arms ready to completely fall off, they’d be sore for a week. What do you think is better? Better yet, they could swim 1 hour of intervals, then jump on their bike and ride intervals for an hour.
Yeah. It didn’t make sense to me and it sounded like something they planned on but who knows maybe they just really enjoy swimming 2 hours straight lap after lap. To each his own. I enjoy my swims far more when I’m doing some technique drills and intervals.
The swim cutoff for the IM is 2:20. So there will be athletes taking 2+ hours to finish it. What you witnessed at the pool could’ve been a time trial to ensure they make cutoff. Or is could’ve been really excessive pool miles.
My swims are always 1 hour. We can usually get in 2.2 miles in that span. Close enough to the official race distance for me.
The swim cutoff for the IM is 2:20. So there will be athletes taking 2+ hours to finish it. What you witnessed at the pool could’ve been a time trial to ensure they make cutoff. Or is could’ve been really excessive pool miles.
My swims are always 1 hour. We can usually get in 2.2 miles in that span. Close enough to the official race distance for me.
I think it was just excessive miles. Not saying they were the fastest but they seemed to be going along pretty well. But maybe that’s their Sunday morning routine and they like doing it.
2 hours sounds absurd unless they are actually planning to take 2 hours to do that swim?
I usually swim 4500 yard sets twice a week, and a shorter sessions around 3000yds. Those are always a mixed bag between longer intervals (500s and up) and lots of fast shorter intervals, but still totaling around 4000-4500 yards. Now that all depends on how fast you swim, so 4500 yards for me usually comes in around 1:10 of total time spent in the pool. Others might need 2 hours to go that far I guess?
I have only raced two Ironmans - CDA last year and Whistler this year. Both swims have been 1:00:xx, and I never swam until starting triathlon 3 years ago. I only say that to preface the fact that my longest pool swims in both builds were 3800m and I was in the Pool for less than 1:10. My weekly volume in the 8 weeks leading into the race ranged from 9-12k with my focus being on frequency to achieve volume rather than less frequent, high volume swims. I do believe that it’s good to become a good pool swimmer, but found a lot of success in training my shoulders with a buoy/paddles for my longer sets which translated well into my 2 wetsuit legal swims.
I have only raced two Ironmans - CDA last year and Whistler this year. Both swims have been 1:00:xx, and I never swam until starting triathlon 3 years ago. I only say that to preface the fact that my longest pool swims in both builds were 3800m and I was in the Pool for less than 1:10. My weekly volume in the 8 weeks leading into the race ranged from 9-12k with my focus being on frequency to achieve volume rather than less frequent, high volume swims. I do believe that it’s good to become a good pool swimmer, but found a lot of success in training my shoulders with a buoy/paddles for my longer sets which translated well into my 2 wetsuit legal swims.
This is my 3rd year doing triathlons. No IMs yet but two HIMs. Planning on IM next year. Really started to work on my swim this year. Little sidetracked by shoulder issues which are now close to 100%. My plan in the offseason is try and do 5 pool swims a week. Almost all of my pool sessions are about an hour + or - 15 minutes. Definitely working on strengthening shoulders as well as flexibility. Part of my issue is learning to swim more relaxed. NOT planning on two hour swims.
I will defer to the swim experts here, but I do like to do something like 6x500 every few weeks with my actual interval just a tick faster than IM pace (which for me is very slow) and then right at IM pace if you include the rest period (i.e. if I want to the IM swim at 10 minutes/500, I make the interval in 9:15 with a 45 second rest before the next one).
One thing I would add is also valuable is a few sessions where you swim long but slow and then go do a long ride right out of the pool just to get a sense for what the swim does to your ride and how you need to pace the swim to ride well.
If it required a 2 hour straight swim in a pool… I would not sign up for an Ironman. The best thing about swimming is all of the options regarding interval length, distance, set structure, etc. Mixing it up makes the time go by, and overall, I am swimming at a much higher level. Mixing faster and slower swims improves pacing. For final-prep muscular endurance, I still favor the 1970’s distance swimming classic: 42x100 Freestyle. I divide into broken swims of 1000 as 4x(10x100) 1’RI at whatever sendoff I can handle to comple the entire workout. The trick is to descend the times, ie the100’s get faster through the 1000. I’m ready for that 1’ break, and yes, I have to add the final 2x100 on the 4th set. If I pick the right interval, and stay controlled early in the set, this is achievable, but challenging. I used to drop the interval for each broken 1000, but that was too hard Looking like a machine trumps standing at the wall bragging how long you’ve been mindlessly swimming back and forth anyday.
Unfortunately, it’s not abnormal for triathletes to train the swim like that. The goal should be to find the minimum amount of training you need to achieve peak performance. Flogging triathletes with pointless yardage that looks good on training peaks seems to be a goal amongst triathlon coaches. You can train for an Ironman swim very efficiently with never swimming any repeat longer than 100 yards/meters. If you are interested in seeing what I’m talking about, you can see all the workouts we did at a 3 week camp back in January.
Unfortunately, it’s not abnormal for triathletes to train the swim like that. The goal should be to find the minimum amount of training you need to achieve peak performance. Flogging triathletes with pointless yardage that looks good on training peaks seems to be a goal amongst triathlon coaches. You can train for an Ironman swim very efficiently with never swimming any repeat longer than 100 yards/meters. If you are interested in seeing what I’m talking about, you can see all the workouts we did at a 3 week camp back in January.
Looking like a machine trumps standing at the wall bragging how long you’ve been mindlessly swimming back and forth anyday.