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Swimming 2
Swimming 2
Can I Really Swim That Far
A little workout trick for first-time triathletes.
I don't know which was harder for Alice: betting a friend they'd both finally do a triathlon next summer or asking my advice on how to train. She's done just fine on her own, thank you, cycling with a local bike club on rides up to 50 miles, and running somewhat regularly over the last 15 years, putting it all on the line in a road race now and again. As a fit 40-something, she can obviously handle her own training. But when it came to triathlon, something about having to swim a quarter mile across a lake before she ever got near her bike always stopped her. And even though she's my wife, we somehow never talked about it, which was probably just as well.
But the bet has changed all that. Alice must really be determined to win this wager because she let me put her on a program I would have recommended all along, one that can take the teeth out of the quarter mile for anybody. Instead of attacking the distance all at once, like it was the Matterhorn, you break it up into a lot of manageable hills over the winter. By spring, almost without noticing what you've done, you're ready.
Alice's story is typical of many would-be first-time triathletes. She swims anywhere from a half mile to a mile at the pool each week, one or two lengths at a time. Does this count, she wonders? Can 50-yard repeats get you ready for a straight swim of 500 yards in the pool, much less in open water without those handy wall turns every 25 yards?
Well, yes, at least they're the first rung. What she needs now is a ladder strategy, a pool training program that will build both her repeat distances and her confidence, step by step, by gradually and systematically stretching the distance she swims without resting in her workouts.
After covering a quarter-mile straight (something that only an estimated 2 percent of all swimmers can do, by the way), we'll throw in a little speed to make sure her bicycle isn't the last one racked in the transition area when she hits the beach on D-Day. Fortunately, her stroke is already fairly good--look who she's married to!--so we can place a bit more emphasis on endurance than technique in her program.
To gradually build up from 50-yard repeats to her target distance, Alice will use a single timed 500-yard set each workout. It won't be the only thing she does, but it will become a main set for focusing her attention in each workout. She'll need to add another 1200 yards or so to reach her normal workout yardage, and she can do them in a variety of drill and swim laps (including warm-up) before and after the 500 set.
Everything is based on her total elapsed time, both swimming and resting, for the set. She can take as much rest as she needs between each repeat at first, but she's got to work on gradually reducing it to "zero" rest--the same amount she'll be entitled to on race day. For example, if she does ten 50-yard repeats in 45 seconds each, and rests an average of 15 seconds every time, her total for the set will be 10 minutes. As her stamina grows and she later swims ten 50s at the same speed, but with only 10 seconds rest between, her time will drop to 9:10.
The key is making individual swims gradually longer over the winter, subtracting rest periods. That alone will improve her times. The 500-yard main set gets done at least once a week, and each level lasts only until she feels comfortable moving to the next one, or her time for the set no longer improves. Once she tops out at the straight 500-yard swim, I'll have her shift to an emphasis on gaining speed by going back to any of the first five levels and using rest intervals from 10 to 30 seconds per 50, trying to knock some time off her repeats.
Before starting an exercise program, consult a physician..
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