I’m training for the Army Alumni Swim Meet. The meet’s not some big deal or anything—we’re only swimming 50s and 100s—but then again, I have absolutely zero intention of going up there and embarrassing myself in front of my former teammates. So yeah, I am training.
Up to now, I’ve been training this season mostly with an eye towards swimming comfortably. I mean, it’s nice to swim fast, but the reality is that Swimming is the least important discipline in triathlon in terms of time. For example, in an Olympic distance triathlon you swim somewhere between .9 and 1.1 miles. For a good swimmer, that’s something like 20 or 25 minutes while a weaker swimmer may go as long as 35 or even 40 minutes. Regardless, you then hit the bike for ~25 miles—that’s more than an hour, even if you’re a terrific athlete—and after that, you still have to run a 10K. Which means that even if you came out of the water a full ten minutes behind your competition, you still have time to make up a good chunk of ground, pretty much no matter what. And that’s just at the Olympic distance. In longer races, the swim is de-emphasized even further.
So, as the saying goes, “You can’t win a triathlon in the swim.” For this reason, I concentrate of swimming comfortably rather than swimming fast, and I don’t swim more than twice per week, even though I know that my body could tolerate more work in the pool based on my background. Because like it or not, all that extra swim training is going to provide at best modest benefits to my overall triathlon performance.
With all of that said, there is nothing wrong with trying to swim faster. I don’t know that it’s where you should put the majority of your training in-season, but now that the offseason is here (or at least right around the corner), now’s the time you might want to think about doing some more focused swim training. In the offseason, time is less of a precious commodity.
You, Mr. and Ms. Triathlete reading this blog, can also use some of these same principles to do your own offseason speed work in the pool—if you’re interested.
To be clear, these workouts are intended for folks who already feel comfortable in the water. As a general rule, I would advise against doing these if you consider swimming a mile to be a big deal. Or, to put it another way, if merely completing a one- or even two-mile swim is an accomplishment worthy of a Facebook post, then these workouts are probably not for you.
Rather, these workouts are intended for folks for whom swimming work is already a part of day-to-day life. For those folks, these workouts are intended to offer a different, more speed-based approach to swimming than is typically present in triathlon and/or endurance training.
I swim twice per week, usually on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Now I don’t personally care when you swim, but these are written for me, and they are labeled accordingly. My Wednesdays tend to be short; Saturdays can run an hour or more. There’s some theoretical basis for that breakdown, but it’s at least equally caused by the fact that I like to get back to the house in time to catch Arrow on Wednesday nights.
These are all interval-based sets. Choosing an interval can be tricky, but there are some basic guidelines:
- You want to rest between :15 and :30 between intervals.
- Not everything is fast just because it’s on an interval. I do plenty of aerobic work using intervals.
- I use four speeds: warm-up/easy (60%), aerobic (80%), tempo (85%), and hard (90+%).
- Setting your interval doesn’t have to be hard. Do a 600 for time, figure your split/100, and add :20. That’ll give you a decent working (aerobic) 100-yard interval. Adjust as necessary.
I personally tend to average between 1:10 and 1:15 per 100 yards freestyle, so I set my intervals at either 1:25/100 or 1:30/100 depending on what I’m trying to accomplish with each set.
Finally, I am training to swim butterfly. You probably are not. So you do not need to swim any fly (or any other stroke) unless you absolutely want to. What you will want to do instead is to swim freestyle hard in every place where you see butterfly below.
Got questions? Drop ‘em in the comments, and I’ll answer ‘em.
Even a year from now. This is my blog; I’m not going anywhere.
The Workouts
Wednesday (Week 1):
5 x 100 warm-up @ 1:30
5 x 100 @ 1:30 (tempo)
100 easy
10 x 50 @ :55, alternating fly/free
200 kick
100 warm-down
Total: 1900 yards
Saturday (Week 1):
2 x 200 @ 3:00 warm-up
10 x 100 @ 1:30 (tempo)
8 x 50 kick @ 1:05
5 x 100 pull @ 1:30 (aerobic pace)
100 easy
8 x 50 @ :55 alternating fly/free
200 warm-down
Total: 3000 yards
Wednesday (Week 2):
5 x 100 @ 1:30 warm up
3 sets alternating:
-- 100 fly @ 1:30 (tempo)
-- 4 x 50 free @ :55 (aerobic pace)
100 easy
200 kick
400 pull
100 warm-down
Total: 2200 yards
Saturday (Week 2):
200 SKIPS*
5 x 100 @ 1:30 (tempo)
100 easy
10 x 50 @ :55, alternating fly/free
300 kick
300 pull
100 easy
4 x 50 fly @ :50 (aerobic)
100 warm-down
Total: 3100 yards
Wednesday (Week 3):
5 x 100 @ 1:30 warm-up
3 x 300 @ 4:15 (base 1:25/100)
3 x 200 @ 1:25 (base 1:25/100)
3 x 100 @ 1:25
100 warm-down
Total: 2400 yards
Saturday (Week 3):
3 x 200 warm-up @ 3:00
6 x 100 alternating fly/free @ 1:35
100 easy
6 x 50 alternating fly/free @ :50
100 easy
100 fly (for time)
100 easy
10 x 100 pull @ 1:30 (aerobic)
100 warm-down
Total: 3000 yards
Wednesday (Week 4):
5 x 100 @ 1:30 warm up
3 x 100 free @ 1:30 (tempo)
3 x 100 fly @ 1:40 (tempo)
3 x 100 free @ 1:25 (aerobic)
200 kick
3 x 200 pull @ 2:55
100 warm-down
Total: 2300 yards
Saturday (Week 4):
5 x 100 warm-up @ 1:30
5 x 100 warm-up @ 1:30
10 x 200 @ 2:50 (tempo)
6 x 50 kick @ :1:05
100 easy
5 x 50 fly @ 1:00
100 easy
5 x 100 pull @ 1:30 (aerobic)
100 warm-down
Total: 3850 yards
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