I've had days like you're talking about, where you leave the pool feeling like it's just not working... then the next day, it just clicks. Baby steps. If you can swim 200 yards without stopping then you're probably breathing properly, so it might just be you're trying to go too fast. Slow it down, take it easy, concentrate on form.

I just starting swimming in Jan, so I went through exactly that stage just months ago, the difference between 200 and 400 and 600 is not huge, once you find that pace you can do continuously it all just flows after that. And always remember - if you get into trouble in the race, you can flip on your back and chill for a bit... get your breath, and get back at it.

Good luck!

BTW - nothing wrong with a duathlon, I did one last year before I got into swimming, it was a lot of fun. It at least gets you out to the event so you can see what it's all about, go through the transitions, etc. It's a good option if you need it.

jono

A great way to get your swimming up is to put in a "Pickle Head" week. Get to the pool everyday and sometimes twice a day. Don't kill yourself, don't hammer just swim...focus on form...you'll be surprised how much more comfortable you'll feel by the end of the week.

I was sick about a month ago (pneumonia - lost about two weeks of training). Anyhow, when I got back in the pool I just felt like poo. My 300 free was awful. I was feeling a little sorry for myself, wah wah wah.

Anyhow, I took a moment, composed myself and made a real effort to quit the negative thinking. Then I did an easy 150 and tried the 300 again. Much better.

What diva_mom said is true.

You can do this. Good luck.

If it helps... I did my first tri two weeks ago. I never learned to swim crawl stroke) until the month before the race. I took lessons at the Y but did not have time to really practice or build endurance. For my tri I sidestroked almost the whole 500 yds. It wasn't pretty or fast but it got me to the bike leg and my vintage 35lb steel framed Giant Cabriolet. After a descent ride my legs were not ready for the run. I pounded it out and finally got my legs under me at about mile 2.5 of the 3.1 mile run. I finally committed to doing the race the first week of July and didn't have much time left to train- then proceeded to overtrain. In the process I managed to cause some old injuries to flare up. The moral of the story is that if I listened to all the things that were causing doubt or saying no or you can't compete- I never would have ran the race. In spite of the obstacles- I ran the race- and did the best I could with what I had to work with. Now I can work on the many things that need improvement. In fact just this past week I swam 1 very good length (good form and timinging). It is small but it is what I have to build on. Good luck with your efforts.

9 weeks is plenty. Get in the pool and swim swim swim until 600 yards ain't nothin'. All it takes is some pushing. Know you can do it and do it.

You are well ahead of my friend that couldn't swim more than 50yds straight the week of the race! We all thought he wasn't going to make it but he did a 600m choppy ocean swim with no issues by alternating freestyle and side stroke.

Relax as much as possible in the water and get it done, you can do it all it takes is the desire.

sooner, you are so right in reminding us that there are significant consequences to our actions. and that if you are truly not ready, rethink it.

oh - and you can do any stroke you want - and you can usually hang on to the support kayaks to rest and regroup if you need to.

Plenty of friends who swam on their backs, breaststroke, never put thier head in the water but some how managed to do the swim! One of them now is in training for his first Ironman in Arizona in Nov! Jason Payre (so if you can track him huge motivation factor). His strenght is that he is a bike geek and can run. (He catches me on the run usually-Vineman it was the bike)

its not the open water freakout, i've been in and around water my whole life, living in the gulf coast, but never trained, so i've never had to do much more than 10-15 yds or tread water for more than a few mins. i'm gonna go for it, because its something that i wanna do. i'll just hit the water alot, and go for some open water swims soon. I am wondering what breakstroke, sidestroke, and crawl are. i am gonna try the active recovery thing today and see how far i can get. thanks for the encouragement and input!

*EDIT* after reading posts on the swimming forum, i'm thinking intervals are the way to go. I'm considering searching for different forms and techniques and doing intervals w/ each form? say 50m breastroke, 50m crawl, 50m backstroke, etc. any comments?

Yes, different strokes are an awesome idea to keep you going. Just like you mentioned, 50 breast, 50 crawl, 50 back, etc. etc. The more you get comfortable, the more you'll be able to do, 100, 100, 100, then 200, 200, 200.

Another method would be do only do the freestyle (crawl), but do in chunks of 25, 50, 75, 100...whatever you are comfortable with. Just make sure to do a total of 500 or 600m for the session. After a couple of times doing that, you'll be able to double your distance chunks and pretty soon, your times of rest between each chunk will decrease until you're doing the whole thing solid.

Swimming is an event that you can quickly increase your maximum distance. Once you get comfortable with your stroke, it's smooth sailing.

went in there last night. first off, i did do the 600 yd through combo of crawl(if that's the reg stroke) and backstroke and several rests, and my lowerback and arms are sore today. talked to the adult swim instructer and get started w/ swim classes in 2 weeks, so when i do that i'll start doing the intervals w/ different techniques, but i'm intimidated more by the pool than by open water, so want somebody to be there to show me how to do it. so yeah, gonna keep at it, weekly updates will be up!

You can try swimplan.com. They will create workouts specificly designed for Triathletes. They are custom to your swimming ability. You are supposed to do a 5 minute time trial, but so far I have been getting workouts based on a rough assesment of my ability.

sounds like you'll make it just fine. Nice job!

yeah, like i said...steady improvements. just knocked off a quick 160 yds after an upper body workout, no break, altho i did one or 2 laps backstroking, but besides that no break, as well as 600 yds total..hooray!

*EDIT* recapping my swim from yesterday i actually did 200 yds and 160 is is when i started back stroking, and i did 20 yds back stroking, so 1 lap, and the rest was the regular stroke! woot.