race schedule for the year (first ever!!!)
Ideally you would like to get where a 1500m swim is "easy" to do. You should at least be able to swim that distance in the pool without having to stop.
so...ummm.....1500m can get easy? is that just a result of getting your breathing pattern under control and tuned in and just not stopping?.......what's a good time for a 1500m open water swim?
It is better to hurt from doing something than from doing nothing...
First Triathlon (400m/20k/2.75mile) 1:39.15 including 33 minutes in the water
The breathing was the key for me. Once I felt a rhythem developing it all fell into place.I relaxed and it actually did become easy to swim for an hour straight. I am not the least bit fast, but I am comfortable in the water. Give it time, it will happen.
"If you set a goal for yourself and are able to achieve it you have won your race." -Dave Scott
~Garen~
For me (a non-swimmer of the world) it was very important to just work on relaxing, especially for the first few tris. My form was pretty bad initially, so even when I would exert myself more to try and "sprint" in practices, I wouldn't see enough of a gain in speed to make it worth it. So then I just focused on making it as easy as possible to get through the water so I have more energy to make up the lost time on the bike and run.
I just started somewhere low (like swimming 400m straight or so) and worked it up like 50-100m/workout until I was in the range I wanted.
Maybe this comparasion isn't fair, but if I was thinking about running a race, and I wasn't sure if I could walk that far, I'd be worried.
I love the water and I've always been comfortable in it, but before last year I never tried to swim a long distance without stopping. Last year before my first triathlon, I worked on finding my "walking pace" before I worked on anything else. Once I knew that I could swim at that pace for as long as I needed to, I worked on swimming faster for a lap or 2, and then using that pace to recover. Then I knew that if I found myself going way too fast in a race, I could always slow down and recover without stopping.
I still haven't worked on swimming faster in the same way that I've worked on biking or running. I've tried drills that are supposed to make you more efficient, but my swim workouts don't have easy days, hard days, warmups, cooldowns, or repeats. Basically, I get in the water 3 times a week to have fun and try a few technique drills.
My laid back strategy got me a time of 13:51 in a 750m sprint, and a 35:30 in the 1500m for my 2 races last year. I'll find out this year if it gets me any faster, or if I'm actually going to have to "work" to get better.
What's a good time for a 1500m open water swim?
thanks trisooner,
i'll aim for a 40min pace and in my training.......i'm currently doing 1min 50's on every 2 minutes for half an hour.......and intend to start decreasing towards 50's on the 1's for my shorter interval days
It is better to hurt from doing something than from doing nothing...
First Triathlon (400m/20k/2.75mile) 1:39.15 including 33 minutes in the water
TryScott: I like that analogy.
scottbland247: You do have the occasional endurance set in your core work, right? Running is my strong leg, so you may not want my advice. But I found the easiest way to build comfortably to 1500 was to do what I had done in running to increase speed on the 1/2 or full mary: string together shorter timed (at tempo) distances over the course of a few weeks until I needed no recovery period in between. So like you're doing those timed 50s now. Throw in some timed 100s, then 200s with, say, 30 sec. recovery. Then start stringing them together with shorter rests. I don't know, for me this helped me get much more comfortable at the longer distances at race pace. This also kept me from blowing my form.
Di mana ada kemauan, di situ ada jalan (Where there is desire, there is a road). – Indonesian proverb
I'm trying to set my swim schedule as follows (by far my weakest leg):
Monday: 50m intervals (try to get my average speed down from it's current 55sec and move from starting on 1:50sec to 1minute)
Thursday: 100or 200m intervals
Saturday: 1000m lake swim (500m each way)
It is better to hurt from doing something than from doing nothing...
First Triathlon (400m/20k/2.75mile) 1:39.15 including 33 minutes in the water
I think you will definitely be okay with the 1500M distance by the time you need to compete in it. I would continue on with your swimming strategy. If you can comfortably swim your sprint distance continuously now, work on increasing the distance of the continuous swim and throw some intervals in to spice up the pool work. This could help for a generic swim:
Warm up: 200yds
4x50 Drills - 25 drag thumb up side on recovery part of stroke/25 regular
- 25 catch up (leave non-pulling arm above head until your stroke arm gets back to it/25 regular
- 25 kick/25 regular
***Any combination of drills to work on your stroke efficiency would be fine to build form***
2x200yds swim while resting in between the two for half the time it takes you to swim the first 200
4x50 swim while resting for 50-75% of the time it took to swim the first 50
Cool Down 200yds (easy and calm focus on form and breathing)
**As time marches on, you can add either additional repetitions to the 2x200 or increase the distance by 50yds a week. Personally I think that you could alternate between adding a rep for one of your workouts a week and then adding distance for the next workout and reverting to the original number of reps. You could also mix in a long timed swim (say 8-12 min) to go as far as you can without stopping on the wall.
This will definitely put you on par for a solid swim that you can feel confident will not drain you and leave you with the engery to hammer on the other two legs of the race.






So here's what I am looking at so far:
Mid march: a sprint tri with a shorter swim (400m, 12mile, 2.7mile)
End of June: normal Sprint (750m, 12.5mile, 2.5m)
Mid September: Olympic (1500m, 40k, 10k)
My question is with the swimming....is that something you can just tough your way through or do you need to get where 1500m is not a big deal.....i find it hard to imagine swimming that far not being a big deal
I get about two good swim workouts a week and with two jobs and two kids that's as good as it gets (i can already do the bike and swim so I am not concerned about anything if I can get out of the water)
It is better to hurt from doing something than from doing nothing...
First Triathlon (400m/20k/2.75mile) 1:39.15 including 33 minutes in the water