What kind of swimmer am I? (form/technique vs. fitness)
I'll make this short.
I'm coming back from a long layoff (knee surgery, weight gain, lack of exercise). I can swim 100m comfortably at about 2:05/100m pace. Not lightning fast but I feel as good as I've ever felt. 2:00/100m puts me at my dream IM swim. Obviously, just because I can swim 2:00 for 100m doesn't mean I can swim 2:00 for 3862m. But am I at a point with my stroke where I need focus less time on form/technique and more time on just swimming and swimming fast and getting fit? Right now, I'd say I'm 70% focused on technique (lots of drills, lots of fast(er) 50's) and 30% on just swimming (100's-200's, mostly as WU and CD).
I've never had confidence in my swim stroke. But I went to an instructor yesterday and she said I looked pretty good. She obviously did not watch me swim fatigued. And I must say, I was not impressed with her as a swim instructor. She's definitely a great swimmer but I giver her a C- on swim instruction. I'm getting a 2nd opinion on friday from an instructor recommended by some friends. But what say ye about an out of shape guy who can swim 2:00/100m and at first glance has a decent (not perfect my any stretch) stroke? Switch my focus or keep working on technique?
Comments
"Good" technique generally lives in the 1:10-:20 IM swim time range, with some SWAG adjustments for age, male vs female, etc. IOW, until you're swimming inside that range, you still have technique issues to address.
What Coach Rich said.
Don't want to hijack the thread, but I have just done a Long Course HIM, with a 2 km swim. I have done this race 6 times in a row with swims in the 40 to 43 min range. Before this year, I have only started swimming 12 weeks before the race, as per EN 'no swim in outseason'.
This year I swam once or twice all outseason, as per Run Durability Plan. When I was 12 weeks out from the race, I followed the intermediate HIM, plus another swim of about 2 km, with pool buoy each week. Also, my warm up was always 500 metres with paddles and buoy.
This year I swam 35 and change, but I should also point out I replaced my wetsuit with Desoto First Wave. So I am not sure how much improvement was the new suit (it's great to swim in), and how much was the extra volume.
In any case, my takeaway is that with your swimming where it is at the moment, technique must be the major contributor, as you haven't done much volume yet.
Accordingly, I would continue with your technique work and start to add volume.
Peter - that's amazing, you deserve Major Congratulations for that improvement. While I am a big fan of DeSoto wetsuits, having used one since 2005, I think you should attribute *most* of the improvement to the dedication you gave to swimming year round. I don;t know if it is an OF thing, but I find that for every week I stop swimming, I need another week to get back to where I was when I start up again, much less make any improvement (those days are long gone, I think - my IM times have been increasing ever since age 55 or so, from 66 to 76 minutes during the past 10 years.) So stopping in the OS and then trying to get up to speed in IM Prep is a no-go. Luckily, my wife loves to swim, so we go 2x/week together year round, and I try to throw a third in whenever I can, 45 min unless training for a specific race distance. Swimming is what I dread getting back whenever life - injury, illness, skiing, travel - intervenes.
I certainly agree that it seems 'easier' to continue swimming all year round. Specifically, I noticed that when I started my 12 week HIM build this year, the 3 weekly wkos didn't flatten me unlike previous years. This allowed me to absorb the work from week 1.
As you suggest, perhaps it is an OF thing.
I do hear CoachP and I am going to continue the course of drills, short/fast intervals with good form, improving technique, focusing 80/20. My question is at what point (with NO races of any consequence on my radar until November), do I start shifting that focus? Do I have to swim an IM swim in 1:15 to get "approved" to shift that focus? Can I base it on a T-time? Is there some T-pace where I would be able to say I have reasonably good technique and can start swimming for fitness? is there any way to know without actually swimming an IM swim in 1:20?
Have you done a 1k swim test? I'd be curious to know what that time is. Most people here haev more experience than I do but for myself, I can bang out 150M at a much faster pace than I can crank out a 2.4Mi swim.
But I have put my last 3 IM swims right in your target zone (1:16 at IMFL 2013 and again at IMTX 2014 and then 1:07 @ IMCoz 2014) so I thought that I would dig up some of my swim test times for you to benchmark. I was swimming 1000M in a 25M pool in around 18min. My race rehersal swims were coming in around 1:12 (in a swimskin) to 1:16 for 3800M. So one way of gauging where you are would e a 1000M swim test then see what yo come away with.
My hunch is that a "good" handfull of swim lessons from a good teacher will be a big help. I think that time intelligently spent in the pool really can pay off. meaning getting 3 quality swims per week in. And I dont think that Fitness / technique in the water is an either / or way to spend your training time. I am looking for both.
When I took lessons, I took them once per week for an hour then the other two swims per week were per EN protocol and I was just trying to focus on what I learned in my lesson.
So if your 1 km TT pace is 1 min 51 per 100m (ie 18 mins 36 sec), that translates into 2 mins per 100 for the IM swim (ie 76 mins).
Which is where Jimmy's swim paces are for the 1 km TT and his IM swims.
As I pointed out above, I think Victor should continue his technique work and add more volume — and in relation to more volume, I would concentrate now on trying to lower his 1 km time. So do a 1 km TT, and then do lots of swimming faster than that pace for 100s, 200s and some 300s, if it were me.
hmmm- sounds a lot like working to ride faster. or run faster.