Winter Swimming
Jan 21, 10:11 PM
Well, I’m actually continuing to write!
I’ve been swimming semi-seriously now for a bit over a year. I started trying to do more swimming and push harder in the late fall of 2010. That was followed up by taking an early morning swim class in the winter of 2011. That class really helped me kick up my swimming speed and strength. It helped me get my endurance up a bit and get my speed up more. I kept up really well with it through the winter and then re-took the class in the spring. The second time around I wasn’t able to keep up with things and I ended up missing many of the classes. After that I ended up swimming off and on during the day, mornings, afternoons and even the occasional open water swim in the evenings with COTT.
Once I finished my race season with the Buckeye Challenge in August I kept up with swimming but never really did a lot. I took time off for a month or so before getting back in the pool and starting up with some interval sets that Kristy was writing up for me. I was doing sets between 1000yd and 2000yd and was doing good with them.
Then I started getting shin splints. Yes, it impacted my swimming. It seems weird, maybe, but this will be a bit of a recurring theme for a while around here so get used to it. Basically what happened was that I had been feeling really great with my running and when I suddenly couldn’t do it like I had been, I had a need to do something big. So I decided to push myself to do a big swim. I decided to do a 3000yd swim as a challenge and was able to do it with an average lap of just over 1min. So I had my challenge. I started doing a 3000yd swim every Sunday and have done it every Sunday except for when I was gone for Christmas and New Years.
Since coming back from vacation I have continued swimming and doing the 3000’s but I actually haven’t done anything but the long swims. I need to get my other intervals going again!
So why am I doing these long sets? Well, according to the Triathletes Training Bible the best way to get your fitness ready for a race is to start out with low intensity/higher distance and when you get closer to the race bring it down to higher intensity/lower distance. So I want to try to push my distance out so that I’ve got a pretty good base that I can build off of. As I get closer to Giant Eagle I’m going to bring the distance down more but try to bring the speed up.
Older Articles: 2012 Season Training Newer Articles: 2012 Goals Pt 1: Getting here