Swimming for fitness (part 4). Everyone welcome.

[TheOrigRightsofwomen]

Old thread here

Anyone interesting in swimming for fitness welcome here.
Newbies, experiences, the fast, the slow - we're all sharing, learning and most of all supporting each other.

thanks @TriSkiRun99. At least I can still swim, I just clamped my ankles together so I could rest my leg, Seeing an osteopath today because I think there's something not right with my back/hips. On the plus side though it should help with taming the old batwings!

Thank for your advice Tri

I've just printed out a 12 week training programme. It has 3 sessions a week. I only do 2 at the moment. I'll have to have a think and decide whether I want to put my running lower priority for those 12 weeks (I don't!) so I can really see some improvement.

What the hell have I signed up for!

Pants I hope the osteo manages to sort out your problems.

Rights I understand your dilemma, running takes priority with me because I really enjoy it - I like swimming but don't get the same pleasure of being outdoors as I do with running, even if it is in the wind and rain. I run over 100km a week so it doesn't leave a lot of time for cycling and swimming!

Went to the local pool at lunchtime to do my 2km FC and there were loads of people there - I didn't think I'd stay long as the fast lane was crowded compared to when I usually go, and there were some very good male swimmers. But I held my own and found it helped, I swam faster than ever before as I didn't want to hold the other swimmers up. SWOLF 52 and 1.26/100m. Still a long way off target but is proved I'm quite lazy when I swim on my own and don't push myself enough

100K MadameF Brilliant!

I'm a lone parent with a 10 yo (and a 20 yo..who's away) and a full time job. I'm fortunate to have massive flexibility in my work, but nonetheless I have to carefully orchestrate my sport time.

Rights yes me too, a single mum but running is something I can do by getting up very early in the morning or running in the evening (my are old enough to be on their own). Swimming hours are more difficult and I don't like cycling in the dark or wet so not easy in the winter.
I have a border collie who motivates me to get out on the dark wet mornings!

MadameF t's so important to carve out that time, isn't it. I go a bit crazy if I can't get out, and fortunately I have good friends/sitters who will come and sit with DS if I'm climbing the walls.

DS is off to secondary in Sept so things will get a bit easier, though I don't want to wish his life away.

Do you race competitively?

I am frustrated with trying to swim for fitness as the pool I use doesn't really have any evening sessions other than weekend so I have to go early morning or lunchtime if I work from home. It is so hard to get enough sessions in. The pool seems to prioritise schools and swim clubs. And I hate morning swimming although the pool is quiet. Is it too much to ask to have the odd session in evening during weekdays?

Seems strange jewel can you not ask the pool why they don’t run other sessions? Our public pool does only kids lessons 4-6pm then has a mix during the week from 6-9pm. One session is even Ladies only 8-9pm, plus swim fit lanes where anyone can swim lengths and a teacher is on hand to offer advice if you are working on technique. Swim club do on 3n have 2lanes but it leaves 4 other lane space for others.

They do have evening sessions that starts at 20:30 which I think is way too late. That would mean getting home at 10ish. When would one have an evening meal?

TriSki - Your pool seems to have a really good timetable.

Rights yes, I live in France and belong to an athletics club. I'm 54 and prefer long races because I'm ancient (ultra trails and marathons) but I still do the odd 10k, how about you? I find swimming and cycling really help with running, for the knees and the core.

I find times quite tricky too. I'd like to swim in the morning, but the public can't get in the pool until 7:15am, and I normally do @45 minutes, so I would end up being too late for work, and even 30 mins would make it quite close. I have been sticking to adult only sessions but now I'm a little bit more confident, I might try a normal session and go in the lanes. I did try a 9-10pm session this week, which was lovely in that there were only about 8 of us, and I had a lane to myself, but I found it hard to get to sleep that night.

Prof - what do you do for an evening meal when you swim late? I prefer to swim on an empty stomach so that would mean eating very late which is not good for a whole host of reasons not least the impact on sleep.

I find I have to eat by 6pm for a 7pm swim for it to be comfortable, so the eating/9pm swim wasn't too bad. I think I would find it hard to swim on an empty stomach, but I agree that a smaller meal is better.

I am also frustrated and haven’t been in the pool this year. I did go New Years Eve but a combination of things including a streaming cold right now have got in the way.
I’m even more frustrated because I completed c25k at the end of last year, loved it, was feeling great but in December got plantar fasciitis so currently hobbling everywhere. I could cry. I have cried in fact.

@jewel1968 our evening sessions are from 8-10pm; I think it's common to have clubs before that. I used to get to the pool 9.30pm but I'm a night owl and I was in the middle of hideous divorce so had to get out

@MadameF Bonjour! Well done on the Ultras - that takes commitment.
I race a lot; half marathon is my favourite.
I'm 50 this year (new age cat...wooop!) so I'm not far behind you.
I agree, mixing it up becomes more important as you get older. I've had 3 stress fractures in the last few years so need to be careful.

Sorry...gone off topic. Ermm I'm swimming tomorrow

Spotted these training plans off a swimathon link are these any use to you, TheOrigRightsofwomen swimathon.org/files/download/documents/Swimathon20-training-plan-10-week-1.5k-Beginner.pdf I know your not a beginner but I couldn’t get the other link to copy there’s intermediate and as advanced options.

Personally I got bambozzed by all the jargon and just swam up/down according to how I felt on the night but tried to do 45mins and some nights I filled the whole time others I pottled abit more mixed it up with kicks and drills and different strokes but got to a mile within a couple of months as I had running stamina as base fitness.

I did some training last year, was swimming about a km at the beginning and gave myself 13 weeks to train for a 5km swim.

So I just added half a kilometre every week that I possibly could in a long weekend swim, and did it that way, with a short kilometre swim in the week.

Suspect it's not the recommended method but it wasn't that bad.

I'm popping in here because I'm training now for this year's 5km swim. Sitting at 3km at the minute. My target time for 5km is 2hrs. Last year I was aiming for 2hrs 30 and did it in 2 03, but figure there are significant diminishing returns in terms of fitness and technique gains as I hadn't swum regularly for years when I started up again last year.

At the moment I'm averaging 23 mins a kilometre, but I can get my time down to about 21.5 on a single km swim.

I'm trying to do some interval training, but lots of the plans want you to be training 3+ times a week with core work and other stuff on top and that's just not realistic for me. At the moment I'm trying to just add some sprints into my short swims, so maybe sprint 2 in every 6 lengths. Will that do it?

Great to see everyone else swimming! Have been debating the great east swim, as v near me. Has anyone had a stomach bug from it if they've done it? I had the worst one I've ever had in my life after my last open water river swim and it really put me off.

I have been out of the pool for a couple of weeks. A mixture of traveling for work and feeling below par. Went back today and it nearly killed me. I normally do roughly an hour and today after 20mins I was dreaming of climbing out and going to bed. I managed to do about 40mins. I deliberately didn't count my lengths as I knew they would be on the low side.

evening sessions that starts at 20:30

exactly same as my pool (*maybe is my pool).
So actually, I have observed... most the people at the so-called open swim sessions, not lanes or family anything special session, or actually doing lengths! In quite disciplined manner. Have a look to see if this is true where you are.

I have,t been to the pool for over a week because of a bad cold (which I'm sure I caught there last week). Didn't feel at all at ease this evening when I went but in the end no slower than usual, so under 50mns for the 2km. Lots of people so not easy doing lengths, it's easier Saturday evening!

Went back to my nice quiet 20m pool today but couldn’t get in a rhythm to start with kept over thinking stuff and my arms were achy and stiff, told myself stop thinking and start feeling the water. I even shut my eyes at one point doing frontcrawl there was no one in my lane when I drifted but it worked and I re-found my rhythm had good session in the end.

TriSki - I am going to try that next time I feel out of sync

Yay! Broken my 2020 duck. First swim since New Years Eve. 1.4 k. Then came home and ate a toasted hot cross bun dripping with butter.

I close my eyes when I get out of sync too! I think it's because it makes it more like swimming in open water which I must prefer so it relaxes me