Wet February (the fish thread)

Thought I’d launch February as we wait for Dr. TC to rehab/recover.

4000 SCY
400 (5:43)/200K
4x(200,150,100 on 1:45/100Y base) first three rounds went well, then I cracked. 200s (2:47-2:54) 150s (2:04-2:09) 100s (1:21-24).
200K
Pull on 1:30/100Y base: 2x200 (2:41s) 2x150 (1:59s) 2x100 (1:19s)
200K
10x50 IM on 1:00 (42-50)

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Thanks for taking the reigns, otherwise we all just flounder…

Big surprise today at the home pool, jumped in as usual and actually had a water chill for about 5 seconds, probably only about 83. Had one of the water walkers screaming how cold she was, so that was a good sign!

2x(5x100buoy@1;40/200frog@4;00)buoys(1;27 to 1;18)frogs(3;50/46)
2x(200p@3;10/2x50 stroke IM order@1;10/100frog@2;30)pulls(2;35/36)fly(37)bk(43)brst(43+)free(33+)
2x(2x100p@1;40/1;50/2x50strokeIM order@1;30/100frog@2;30)pulls(1;18/16/18/16)fly(34+)bk(41)brst(42)free(32)
2X(2X50P@;50/1P@1;20/2x25stroke@1;00)pulls(40/39’s)fly(15+/15)bk(18/17+)100kick
3500SCY in 69 minutes

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otherwise we all just FLOUNDER… I see what you did there monty.

damned if these kids didnt give me YET ANOTHER upper respitory infx… just as my fitness was coming around. SIGH… life.
More to come when I have something to report that is more than a 75min walk in the woods… which was nice.
daved

Been just doing some distance sets lately just trying to bring the fitness up.

Today was 100 200 800 100 200 200 500 500 then 6x50 faster

Found some interesting results earlier comparing 800 free and OW times over a claimed 3km course. The winner was 17 seconds slower over an 800 LCM but got the win in the OW over a 38 minute effort.

Just the craft of OW racing, swimming hard in the open water, getting into a good rhythm on longer distances, being able to draft well. Even someone with 17 - 30 seconds extra cash over a 800 couldnt drop them.

Anyone got any good stories like that or swimmers they know like that?

This is the dynamic I try and get across to those in all the other threads that keep bringing up so and so’s fast pool time, and what they should be able to do in Kona(40 minutes or less!!) Very few get this and continue to argue a point that just isn’t there, or at leas not as important as they would like it to be.

Our new record holder in Kona is one such guy, pool time well off of the very best, but OW times much more competitive. How do I know this, well I was one of those guys back in the day. Swimming in groups where 90% of the guys would lap me in the pool several times in a mile, but would get out sprinted by me at the end of a long OW swim. I dont really know why either, combination of factors I presume, some positive for me and some negative for others.

I know some of it has to do with how your body reacts to way over swimming for a short period of time, and how well you can recover and get back into a groove. Very similar to bike racing, huge power spikes for periods of time, with periods of recovery and back again. OW swimming is a lot like that and advantages those than can cross the red line over and over without too much of a penalty. The fast pool guys just get on the limit and stay there super steady…

And funny I was the same way as a bike racer, medicore TT’er, but really good at road races…

Yeah thats a good take.

Good pool swimmers can do a lot with the walls as well - quick rotation, good under water, and quick in and out in and out of the wall. That has got to add up.

Have you ever done any 3 mile (say around 5km for us aussies) or longer OW racing? Or not really those sorts of events around for you? Surf race is typically 10 minutes or less usually, but then the longer 1-3 miles the standard ocean race

Done them all my friend, tons of 3mile up to a 10 miler back in the day. Of course many 2.4 milers also. (-; Last 3 miler I did was a masters champs in Santa Cruz a couple years ago, water was 58 and no wetsuits!!! that used to be my thing too back in the day, extreme cold water. But over an hour and 5 minutes in that stuff now really hurts me to the core. But to be fair, many who swam with wetties had an even harder time than me, so still got some leftover eskimo in me I suppose…

man they would not run a big open water event like that at 58 here. to be fair - there is one that prob gets to around low 60s (and for sure some parts of the lake are sub 60) - its a big 10km lake swim in a cold part and its a race to some. But its more of an event swim rather than a championship as such. The organisers award a wetsuit category and a bathers category, definitely giving preference and more kudos to the bathers only crew. They put on a great feed afterwards.

Never have I bonked as hard as I did the first time I did that. Really floated in the last 1km, was shattered

sorry to hear you are sick again there Dave, but you always seem to bounce back quickly. I had the same thing going on awhile back, but for the life of me, I have been healthy and not sick a day in the past 6 months or so. Besides my pacemaker going out, kids and wife stuff has just bounced off of me. Get all the vaccines I can, perhaps that and trying not to cross that red line have given me super immunity…Kind of a sprint day today:

3x(5x100buoy or pull@1;40/200frog@4;00)buoys(1;26 to 1;18)pulls(1;17 to 1;08)frogs(3;48/40/38)
4x(4x50p@1;00/2x50frog@1;15/50 stroke fast)pulls(39 to 32)fly(34/34)back(40)brst(42)
4x50kick@1;20, odd dolphin/ even frog(fly-65/58)frog(57/56)
3700SCY in 74 minutes

4000 SCY

1200(17:33)/200K
10x100 on 1:45 (1:20-24)/200K
5x200P on 3:00 (2:38-43)/200K
8x25 IM on 30 (19-23)

Aiming to up my mileage (all 3 sports) about 5% this month and stick with one full day off/week.

No kids in our house, so out of the flu/virus cycle this winter (so far).

I’m one of them… kinda mediocre in the pool, beat people who I shouldn’t be able to beat, when swimming OW…
Friend of mine swam on scholarship at U. of Calif, thrashes me in the pool, I can beat him in tri swims…

I don’t draft much in OW, usually get drafted off of… so it’s not my draft/sprint skills making the difference, suspect it is more of sighting and swimming straight lines between the buoys…

33x50 on 1min, first one 30s flat, haven’t done that in a while.
then felt surprisingly good for the rest of the session.

Recently my insurance stopped covering Advair inhaler and switched me to Advair Diskus. The diskus is a heavier dose of meds, and usually prescribed for COPD rather than asthma. So I’m wondering if the heavier dose is in fact helping…

Sounds like you get justice in OW. Nice. Does your friend usually beat you over longer distance in the pool too?

Did more swimming today but really busy at the moment with about 6-9 people in a 50m lane for 30-45 minutes before it clears out and they open more lanes. Once it cleared out did 5x400 1000 (400s were on 545 then 1000 just hold a hair faster pace and build up capacity the aim is)

Just filling in the swim logs lately, will get motivated to do more targeted stuff once I pick a meet somewhere, somewhen…

2x(3x100buoy@1;40/100frog@2;10/100back@2;00/100frog)buoys(1;27 to 1;20)frogs(1;55 to 1;49)backs(1;29/1;29)
2x(300p@4;30/100frog@2;10/100stroke@2;00/100frog)pulls(3;58/3;53)fly(1;26)brst(1;30)frogs(1;56 to 1;51)
3x100p@1;50(1;14/12/08)100frog(1;55)50fly/50back@1;30(37/39)100frog
100peasy(1;20)6x50kick@1;20 odds dolphin/even frog(65/60/58—56/55/53)100p(1;17)
3500SCY in 69 minutes

Hello Fish - have set myself a target of swimming 500,000m this calendar year and thought it would be good to track it here and any of you who are interested can follow along and throw virtual rotten tomatoes or jangle cowbells.

I know 500k wouldn’t be much for a serious swimmer but the most I’ve done in a calendar year since I took up tri in 2017 (technically my 2nd go at it as I also did some races 2007-11) is just under 380k, so it’d be a decent bit of extra volume for me.

I’m currently on 54,800 (38 days into the year), so broadly on track. My standard training week is around 10k, which gets me a little ahead of the required average of 9615. Then I’ll have illness/injury, holidays, tapers and recovery weeks to account for, so likely will need a few bigger weeks at some point.

Wish me luck!

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Apologies if this is too off topic for this thread, and if so I can just delete this post…

I need to replace a 7 year old or so Garmin watch and the replacement being easy to use while swimming is priority number 1.

I’m interested in an Apple watch because of other health features it offers and me having taken my health much more seriously the last 5-6 months, but I wasn’t sure how well and easy they are to use when swimming with a touchscreen. I usually pause the watch between sets, but I could probably get over that habit if the watch performs well in the pool otherwise.

Any feedback that anyone could provide or alternatives I should be considering instead?

I use Form goggles when I swim. I found them super easy to use and I don’t have to mess with a watch. Also, when I did use a Fenix 5 I found that eventually the altimeter did fail because of water getting into the watch from swimming.

Oh and the goggles are now three years old and cheaper then having to buy another smart watch.

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Best of luck with the mileage goal. I used to just do 300 warm up 10x100 200 warm down when I got back into swimming and swimming more than that was out of the question in the head. Now go for about 1 hour 20 to 1 hour 30 solo with no drama. Maybe you will get a million one year.

A race on tomorrow - 2k local surf race. Been only doing work outs for the past few months and no events so time to have a rip

How did your race go today?? Always tough to crack the ice and do that 1st jump into Mano a Mano warfare.

I had kind of a breakthrough swim today at the low/cool pool, another data point that the hot high pool is getting me fitter and faster, without the good times there.

2x(5x200buoy or pull@3;10/200frog@4;00)buoys(2;57/51/46/45/37)pulls(2;33/29/27/25/2;22)frogs(3;48/3;40)
5x(50stroke hard@1;20/150p recovery@2;40) fly(34+/34)back(41)Brest(41)free(31) pulls(1;59 to 1;55’s)
25 fly all out with 25 easy recoveryX2. (15/14+)50 kick
3550SCY in 64 minutes

Had a guy in next lane who was an obvious swimmer, doing 32+'s for hard 50 breaststrokes. We had a chat and he is about to move up to the 40+ division, and he complemented me by saying was I in the 55+ one. He literally didnt believe me when I said I was preparing to enter the 70+ in a year, so nice ego boost. But when he crushed my fly splits with his breast, brought me back down to earth… (-;

He was from Seattle and swims with Rick Collela, the greatest masters swimmer of all time. Said the guy is a much better trainer than racer too, cannot even imagine that. He will shortly be in the 75+ division, and no doubt will still be close to a 2;11 for a 200IM, unfathomable to think he trains better than a swim like that…

Got to take the compliments when you can! Sounds like a nice guy to drop by the pool and can swim too by the sounds of it. I’ve seen rick name on some of the results and records, we don’t quite have anyone like him here but maybe if some of the others stay good we can compare times soon.

Raced in the “elite” wave today and man they take it our way harder than I am used to, my race craft and off the sand into the shallows needs some polishing. So swam my own way all the way to the last can when i finally caught the kid spat off the first group and then we swam side by side to the shallows when he ran away from me up the beach.

Pretty choppy day so only could get good rhythm in part of the course. Being on my own pack of one had to do my own sighting, was on a better line at times and then others slightly off the line of first pack.

Made an honest man of myself pulling my own way today. Took 6th overall. First two were international level guys