This post pertains to training for races of 1/2 IM or shorter and to those of us ahead of MOP in swimming:
I’ll start with an anecdote I just heard:
A family friend was an outstanding college swimmer (NCAA All American, mid 90s in one or two freestyle events). She did a few Oly distance triathlons a couple years ago. One season she trained 3x a week, up to 6,000 yards at a time for a few months with a hardcore masters program and was second in the swim at a medium sized tri. The next year she trained 2x a week, swam less than 3,000 yards each time for just a couple months. The result: Third in the swim in the same race, less than a minute off the year before. She said if she had to do it all over again, why bother putting in a lot of time swimming when there are bigger fish to fry? (namely biking and running)
I’m in the same boat, almost: as decent ex-prep swimmer, I could train hella hard and come in at 21 minutes in an Oly tri in a lake or I could just maintain (3x a week, 2,500-3,000 yards), accept my 22 minute swims and work on all the other stuff (especially pedaling). (I’m sure my friend could still go under 20 without much work …)
Anyone train their ass off and make any huge swim breakthroughs lately and were they worth it?
As a former D2 collegiate swimmer i’ve found the same thing. I’ve come to believe the following statement is true: you can’t win the race during the swim but you can certainly lose the race.
My better half was a D1 distance swimmer with well than above average credentials. She was the second female (including the pros) out of the water at Eagleman and her IM swim pace is in the low to mid 50s. She has so many yards in her that, as you point out, she does not have to train hard at all to accomplish that. So why is she in the pool 3 days per week 10,000 yards per week? Simple. First, she wants to be the first female out of the water at a major race. That is her goal and it matters to her, so she trains. Her second motivating factor, is she wants to beat everyone she can in her AG and she can’t make a huge dent with a big swim effort. Remember in a half IM every minute on a competitor is 4.58 seconds off her comparable per mile run split. At Eagleman she put 6 minutes on the 10th place swimmer in her AG, that translates to nearly a 0:30 per mile run cushion (assuming equal bike splits). That’s huge. If swimming is her competitive advantage she has to benefit from it fully.
That aside, swimming gives you the opportunity to build your cardiac base, work your secondary bike/run muscles and build your core without putting the wear and tear on your knees and ankles. Over an 8 month season, that also adds up. Besides it gives you something else to do. Just my two cents.
that last part is big i think. you can get a nice base doing long swims and it’s low impact so injury issues aren’t that significant a concern. if time is limited, yes, work on the weaker disciplines, but there are benefits of putting in time in the pool.
and for the record, i personally don’t buy the argument that you can’t “win a race on the swim, but you can it”. i don’t really think you can win or lose it on the swim unless you go too slow.
Good points, especially the calculations. Makes sense.
Personally, I would rather put in 7 hours (instead of 4) per week on the bike in hopes of dropping 6-7 minutes on my bike time than 4 hours (instead of 2.5) per week swimming to drop 90 seconds in my swim (I’m talking Oly distance here).
Over two months, that’s about 25 extra hours of biking all over the place and seeing stuff vs. 12 hours of swimming looking at black lines or murky lake water.
That’s the story with all the ex-swimmers I know. I hate you all. The serious masters swimmers I know say that 3x a week will pretty much keep you stable assuming you already know what you’re doing. I have one friend who swims 9 min sprints and 20 min oly and only swims 2-3 x a week. He was a state swimming champion in high school. Unfortunately( for the rest of his AG), he also runs a 4:50 mile (and he’s in his mid 40’s).
I think you move the analysis into the 24 - 29, 30 - 34 or 35 - 39 man AG and things slant more towards your “swim lite” strategy. To do well in those AGs you need to swim, bike and run well to be competitive. Thus if you give up a minute on the swim it does not really make that much difference and the extra bike training would payoff. That said, give me pool hours in the winter over trainer hours any day.
Wow, this is ironic. Just this morning as I was doing another 3000 I figured that I probably will spend a total of “maybe” 3 hours in the water this summer in competititon. I probably have easily averaged 12,000+ meters a week for months. HOURS per week in the water. I started doing this a few years back to save my legs (at 48 the miles were wearing me down abit), to deal with the midwest cold weather, and simply because I liked swimming. BUT…
While it HAS left me with a good aerobic engine, quite frankly it has also left me about 10 pounds heavier, most of it in the upper body and my relative lack of running has certainly left me slower on that leg…and most of the swim legs are too short to really take advantage of all this yardage I’m doing. I’m still doing OK in the races and the pool has certainly left me less sore, but I’m not sure it has made be a better triathlete. A bigger, stronger one, but I really should run more if I wanted to maximize everything.
One of the reasons I’m hesitating on IMWI is that the IM distance is one you don’t really want to be dragging alot of weight around and that ride with all those quick climbs isn’t exactly a course for a plough horse. Gonna ride it again tomorrow and see how it goes…and then hit the pool!
Are we supposed to swim train?? I forgot all about that part. I’m a slighly better then MOP swimmer (about top 33 percentile) yet, never swim train. I have no swimming background (except I had to be saved from drowning when I sank to the bottom of a pool at age 8). I did swim 3 times this year, when I wasn’t racing. My workouts for those 3 times were 50 and 100 meter intervals for a total each day of about 800 meters. My goal is to survive the swim and pass as many people in the bike and run as I can. I’m normally in about the top 15-20% of my age group (45-49). I’m at the top of what I call the “mere-mortals”.
The best swim training I do is a 30 mile bike ride!! : )
I really don’t know why you would want to swim much at all if you can swim reasonably well. This is my first year doing triathlons. Until about April 1, I had not been to swim practice in 18 years after being a good distance swimmer on a mediocre D3 team and being a very mediocre swimmer on a great HS team.
Since April 1, I have swum once a week, now around 4000 - 4500 per workout. I am only coming out of the water a little more than 2 minutes behind the best swimmers in my AG in sprints with half mile swims, and they are wearing wetsuits while I am not. My bike is about 10 to 15 minutes behind the leaders for 15ish miles and my run is about 8 to 10 minutes slower for five miles. Maybe I could come out of the water with the leaders if I swam three days a week. But, I can probably find 5 minutes combined on the bike and run a lot easier than I could find 2 minutes in the swim.
sorry but i couldnt help myself… but to tell ya the truth that’s what it boils down to. Come out of the water tired or slightly spent or… come out fresh and ready to tear up the bike.
Great for base, great for recovery. When you’re on the verge of over-training, you can swim 6-15 times a week without ill effects. It’s great base work and you don’t beat up any of the moving parts.
After any “key” workouts, recovery is important. Top level athletes can recover better while exercising than while loafing, as long as the exercise level is easy enough (z-2, low z-3). So you can do a swim workout the morning after a track workout, or the morning after an Oly distance race. Gonzo hard swim workouts just barely crack z-4
As a former top swimmer, I think it’s fun to be first out of T-1. It’s also great to be strong coming out of T-1 because you haven’t cooked yourself on the swim. I usually swim through 3 waves (four at San Jose this year, because they used a 4 minute stagger). I can bike pretty well, and it freaks the youngsters out to find a guy with “53” on his calf ahead of them on the run.
So how much swimming is too much? Don’t ask me, I was seventh nationally in the USMS February Fitness Challenge, by swimming 150 miles in the month of February 2002. That’s about 9500 yards a day, seven days a week. It made me slow at meets in March, but I was super fit that summer.
I think swimming pays great dividends as others have mentioned. I think for me, training 3 days a week in the swim 10,000-12,000 yards helps keep me fresh when it is time to get on my bike. Having the base in swim, no matter the length of the event, will make that distance that much easier. In hind sight, I wish that I swam more for IMCDA. I came out of the water about 1:05. Two years ago, at IMUSA I only swam 2x a week for 7000 yards did 1:11. My arms were a bit fatigued. I remember not liking the aero position because my arms were a bit tired. At IMC I swam a 59:00 with about 15,000 yard average (i was swimming masters). I felt better getting on the bike and was able to keep the hr low.
I have not done an oly in a long time but I can imagine that with about 7500 yards a week you will be setting yourself up for a great race.
I think you are looking at it correctly. Put extra work into the areas that will give you the most time gains. Go for the 5 minutes not the 90 seconds.
“I think you are looking at it correctly. Put extra work into the areas that will give you the most time gains.”
If you’re swimming 35:00 (Oly) then spend more time in the pool, 'cuz there are guys doing 19. OTOH, if you’re swimming low 20s and biking 1:15 or running 55…
It makes sense to work your weakness, but it’s more fun to do what you do best!
Swim training??? What a concept! Last Saturday I did my first tri in almost 2 years. My swim training leading up to this event was 4 half hour sessions 2 weeks prior to the race. That was all the swimming I’ve done for at least a year. I’m not even a really good swimmer, but I still beat most of my age group (45-49). I also haven’t biked much this year either - maybe a half dozen rides. I ended up 5th out of 15 in AG with very limited swim and bike training. And my running? It’s my worst discipline - although I’ve been spending all my time training for marathons.
If I had been doing swim training I probably could have gone maybe a minute or so faster. When I was swimming huge yardage a couple of years ago it really messed up my whole head - sinuses, ears, eyes - making it harder to train for the other events, especially running. Running 50+ miles weekly seems to have made swimming easier. The reverse wasn’t true for me - lot’s of swimming really hurt my running.
Now if I could just find time to ride again I think I could be in the top 3 in AG pretty easily. Time gains on the bike per training hour will almost certainly be far more than with swimming. Much better to spend time on the bike instead of in the pool if that is your option.
I absolutely agree. I swim because I enjoy it. I swim more in the winter. Right now, I put time on the bike and run. Running has shown huge improvements (of course, there was lots of room to improve). I developed this thought process last year as I came gasping for breath out of the water while other people passed me in T1. Last month, some jackass passed me while I was slowing down to dismount in T2, then stopped right in front of me. Asshole. It was important for him to be 5 seconds in front of me heading to the racks.
