What was your longest swim before Ironman?

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi Everyone

Just interested to know what peoples longest swim was leading into Ironman. Seems most dont do over 3.8kms, even though swimming is the easiest sport recovery wise.

Cheers Sam
www.therightrevolution.co.nz

2

I swam 2 times…total!!..Before each of my 2 IM races. Each swim was a 2.5 mile continuous swim in a pool (just to be sure I could make the distance without death). Nice easy swim with some drills on some laps to help with boredom (the reason I hate swimming). I completed the 2 IM swims in 76 minutes each time. Other then that I do not swim unless I’m in a race : )

3

Longest continuous swim?

I did a few 1 hour open water swims just to get comfortable with swimming for that long in open water.

4

4400 yds…400 warm up, 1600 naked, 800 pull, 1600 naked @ 30 sec rest
.

5

I swim 4000 to 5000 every tuesday night with the local master’ swim group.

6

1.2 miles at a half ironman
.

7

My long swim leading up to IM is 1 hour and I do that once a week in the last 3 weeks of my build. Prior to that, I do a 45-minute long swim in the two months prior. My IM PR for the swim if 1:01 (current-assisted) or 1:09 in a lake.

8

I regularly do 4000m continuous swims when getting ready for an IM. Open water when I can, pool if I can’t. Trying to respect the distance.

9

6000m twice in last 8 weeks
.

10

Who cares what your longest workout is? It’s irrelevant to your success in the swim in an IM.

I’d be more worried about what i did during my swim workouts and my consistency doing those workouts.

That will tell you more then how long you swam.

fwiw, my longest straight swim before my IM, was about 12min. I still swam under 60 on 4-5k per week for 4mo after taking 8 years out of the water.

Longest swim didn’t have crap to do with it.

11

Longest open water? Short little 10k jaunt. Longest in the pool was 11k (500 warm up, 100 x 100 @ 1:30, 500 cooldown - LCM).

12

maybe 4500 once. usually do 3-4k each time. don’t bother with drills, maybe some kicking thrown in but don’t see a point in doing much more. i know i can do the IM distance no prob. swimming gets pretty relaxing when you get into a nice groove

13

1 x 5000.

14

Thanks for all the Replies. Really interesting to see what people are doing. Im not advocating either way, but do find it interesting that not more of you are going out and doing an hour and a half open water swims, which I guess for most people would be 5-6kms. Obviously the trend now is more quality not Quantity, but it is the Slowtwitch mindset, which is telling you ANY session you do around an hour to and hour and a half is shortish, in comparison to say a 5 or 6 hour bike ride.

Cheers sam
www.therightrevolution.co.nz

15

but do find it interesting that not more of you are going out and doing an hour and a half open water swims

What benefit would that have, other then a mental assurance?

16

Mental assurance might mean a lot to some people. Especially if it their first IM.
I’m confident enough in my swim, I’ll never have to do an IM distance straight swim ever (non-race). (The likelihood of me doing another IM altogether is slim at this point, but that’s beside the point.)
For confidence, I swam 3000 yards straight a couple of times before my first IM. What I discovered was my left hand fell asleep some 2500 yards in. I swam through that to see what would happen. I didn’t lose strength, just a numb forearm. So, I had confidence that if this was going to happen during my race, I don’t need to back off, I’ll still be able to go my intended pace.
So, I think it’s a good idea to swim near the distance at least once, just so you’ll know how you’ll feel.

17

I swam 4k 3-4 times per week for about 9 months. I was swimming with a masters group. A lot of that is just that I love swimming. Not a necessary distance by Any account. And I did one 4k continuous swim. I think for the couple months leading up I did one swim each week that was 4x1000. Had a Stellar group of friends who would jump in a lane with me to pound out those long sets.

Jodi

18

I’m curious, would your 4-5k be in how many swims per week? 2 @ 2500 per?

19

I just cry and look for my floaties…

20

As desert dude said, more important to be doing intervals in your swim workouts. You should be comfortable doing a couple 3-4k workouts a week, particularly comfortable with that 4k … largely because less fatigue on the swim = better rest of race