No swimming in offseason
I am a trial member, signed up for an Ironman next July (LP). I just learned to swim last year, and my Half Ironman swim in August, 2010 was around 39:00. Do I fall within the category of athletes that should not be swimming thru the winter? Can I really expect to complete an Ironman swim in the 1:15 to 1:20 range if I stop swimming until April? I have improved my swim since this past Summer, so I am reasonably confident I could swim in the 36 range for a Half now, but no faster. My stroke needs a lot of work.
I should also add that my pool is only a 5 minute drive from my house, and doing drills and working on stroke technique 2x per week would not be a hardship for me.
David
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Hi David,
Welcome to your trial membership. If you haven't already done so, please read our recent blog post on swimming in the OutSeason.
Our experience, across hundreds of athletes who've been in your position right now, is that, yes, you could not swim until April, pick it up again, and be right back where you left off this week, and swim a 1:20 on race day (let's just pick a number). Or you could swim now, through the winter, doing form and technique work and swim about 1:15-17 on race day. Also, while the pool is only 5' away, there is a time investment involved in getting ready to swim, actually swimming, showering, adjusting your schedule to get you to the pool during their hours, as well as the mental cost of you diving into the pool in January with your head wrapped around the notion that what you are doing right now, in January, is preparing you for a race in July. In our experience, that is a legit cost that takes it's toll after months and months.
We simply encourage you to factor all of _those_ costs into that 3-5' possible, not guaranteed, swim gain on race. And balance this agains the benefits of giving yourself two complete days off per week instead of swimming = more recovery time to absorb the high intensity running and cycling training we have you do, etc. We have people putitng up 1-3hr Ironman PR's, as a funtion of improved fitness (we are very good at making people much faster) and improved execution skills (we are very good at teaching people how to apply their fitness to a race, properly). Swim PR's are a very, very small fraction of that 1-3hrs.
In the end, Patrick and I are just time investment advisors. You're sitting across our desk and asking for our advice on how to invest your time. We can either repeat the same advice that everyone else reflexively gives, which is triathlon = 3 sports = you must swim all year long, period. Or we can sit back, reflect on our 20+ yrs of IM training and coaching experience across thousands of athletes and tell you what we've learned.
But if you do decide to swim, please realize that EVERY ONE of our training plans includes complete Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced swim schedules, plus our Swim Clinic eBook. Basically, we have the best swimming resources anywhere, for the money, this from a team that encourages you to not swim in the OutSeason. Just sayin'
Dave, my first year with EN I followed the no swimming in OS model, two things happened. My shoulder thanked me for the time off and I ended finishing my half about 2 minutes faster than the year before. Who knew that doing less was more.
I think for me the break help me fully recover my shoulder which allowed me to swim better when it counted.
Good luck and welcome
I'll add one more consideration to the equation however. How comfortable in the water are you? You say you just learned how to swim and for total noobes, sometimes the biggest gains are really more about building confidence in the water. Folks like that I believe do benefit from some time in the water during the OS, working on stroke and form and just learning how to relax in the water. Note, this isn't about improving your swim or getting faster, I'm just talking about getting more relaxed about the swim.
OTOH, if you are perfectly happy in the water and have no anxiety about the swim, then I highly encourage you to consider the ROI as Rich has laid out.
David,
I swim about the same or a little slower than you 40 1/2 and just did 1:29:XX at IMC. I did no swimming for 3 years prior to joining EN last year and only started swimming 12-14 weeked before IM. I am comfortable in the water just slow. My previous IM time in 2004 1:30:xx, and I had an apartment with a pool.
There are some that swim in the OS becasue the like it or have no other commitments. I'd say if you are getting to that 1:15-1:20 range then you only have another 5-10 minutes or so until you need to be doing more volume to get gains.
Gordon