Training for Cold Water Swims – 9 Tips You Need to Know | The FINIS Blog

Follow the link above to see the article on the FINIS Blog.

The video that I saw tweeted was: Secret Tip – How to position your hands underwater – The Race Club. This is a good video about how to hold your fingers (just a bit apart) in order to create a bit of turbulence when you swim, which effectively increases your hand’s surface area.

I followed the link on the above video to this one, also very good: Secret Tip – How to Pull Underwater Drills – The Race Club.

Weather was cruddy today. Cool and raining. Not many people showed up for the meet. 17 total competitors. I heard that the sprint format meet last month had a lot more. Five of today’s swimmers were older: ages 48-69. I was in this group. The remaining twelve were very young: ages 17-24. Notice the huge age-gap.

I arrived at the pool at 8 am. Louis, my coach, asked me what events I would swim. I had picked the 200 yard freestyle and the 500 yard freestyle. He said we could start warming up. The meet was supposed to begin at 9 am. I swam about 500 or so yards in warmup. Most of it slow and easy. A couple of short 25s a bit harder with faster arm turnover. And some practice on my flip turns. I’ve been learning flip turns for 2 weeks now, and they are passable but not very good. Before the meet started I also got a chance to practice a dive off a starting block. I’ve never done that before. Louis just said to make sure I tuck my head down, which I did. No problem.

The 200 free was the first event of the day. Two heats with 15 total swimmers. I was in the first heat, lane 2 (they posted heat and lane assignments for all events before 9 am). So we got up on the starting blocks, they called the start and into the pool I dove. They had seeded us with times from previous events and/or practice times and had assigned us lanes near someone with similar speed.  Still, I really did not pay any attention to the swimmers in the lanes next to me. This was just all in my own head, against myself, trying to make myself do this swim. I had been tired and sore this past week but I still hoped I had recovered enough for a decent swim.

I went out much too fast in the first 50 though. I was aggressive, attacking, pulling hard and putting out an energy level that I could not maintain for 200 yards. I’m pretty sure that I slowed down as I swam, getting positive splits, and the last 50 was so hard to finish. Also I turned a bit far from the wall on at least one of my flip turns, and some of them were crooked. So that probably caused me to lose some time. In the end I got 3:32.44 which is certainly not my best time for a 200. But not horrible, either. I probably could have done better if I’d started off a bit slower.

I was so tired at the end of this race, too. Just gasping for breath and my legs were totally dead and arms did not feel like they could pull me out of the pool. So hard to get out of the pool and even walk. I went down to the shallow end to swim a cool-down stretch out, about 100-200 yards (I don’t remember what I swam). Later I saw Louis and said, “I don’t think I want to do the 500 any more.” Which made him sort of laugh and he said I’d do fine.

By the way, I was 15th out of 15 swimmers for this event. Dead last. I’m OK with that. The 14th swimmer, Lois, beat me by about six-tenths of a second (note that Lois is 15 years older than I am). Actually, I did notice as I was swimming the last 25 yards that Lois and I were coming in to the finish very close together.

The 500 free was the fifth event, so I had 3 events during which I could rest and recover. When we were on the starting blocks I heard Louis tell me to do my first 200 controlled. Yeah, I did not go out anywhere nearly as fast and furious as I did at the start of the 200. Definitely tried to keep a reasonable pace that I could maintain. Heck, as far as I was concerned, the first 350 could be a controlled pace. I do think I hesitated a bit getting off the starting block. Oh well. Between that, turning a bit short of the walls a couple times, a couple of crooked turns and just generally being tired to start with, it was clear this wasn’t going to be a fantastic race. Just get it done.

So this was 20 laps of 25 yards each. Longish. I was counting them off as I swam and just wanting to be done from pretty early on. After I got 350 yards done I tried to swim just a bit harder, but my legs were feeling SO dead. Tried pulling mostly with my arms. The last 100 yards I tried to build, increasing my speed as I swam, but I really didn’t have much left in me. Finished as hard as I could. Felt totally drained, unable to climb out of the side of the pool. Swam over to the ladder to get out (which is something I never do). Breathing hard and walking so weakly.

Went down to the shallow end for a 200 yard cool down, stretch-it-out swim. Now THAT felt good.

My time on the 500 yards was 9:44.45. Again, I’ve done better than that a few times in practice. We had one heat of 8 swimmers for this event. I was 8th out of the 8, nearly 3 minutes behind the 7th finisher, who was a 24-year-old guy. That means I must have been the only one still swimming for my last 6 laps (or 150 yards). I figured I would be the only one in the pool for the last 100-200 yards. But I really couldn’t tell for sure while I was swimming if anyone else was still in the pool along with me.

You know, when I used to watch my kids at swim meets when they swam on the local summer swim team, and they would be the last one finishing, it would be almost painful to watch. You feel like you want to will them to swim faster or do better. It’s a lot easier being the swimmer, I’ll tell you, than the spectator. I knew I was probably going to be last and it didn’t bother me at all.

So all-in-all an interesting experience. I guess it was fun. Still trying to decide. Exhausting for sure. I’m still supposed to go out and run six miles today. I’m going to wait until late afternoon to see if my legs can recover some first. Because I don’t feel like I have anything left right now. And it is definitely going to be an easy run today. I had thought I might do a tempo run, but I’ve pretty much tossed that idea out. Recovery run is what’s on the books now.

Discussing this afterwards with the coach, I described my performance today as “pathetic”. But realistically, first swim meet ever and after having been exhausted and sore earlier this week, it was what I had in me today. I put it all out there in the pool. I would do this again, but hopefully be better prepared and rested for next time.

Today’s events at the meet (Short Course Yards):
1. 200 Medley Relay (scratched…guess no one wanted to do this?)
2. 200 Freestyle
3. 200 Breaststroke
4. 200 Butterfly
5. 200 Backstroke
6. 500 Freestyle
7. 200 Individual Medley (IM)
8. 100 Butterfly
9. 100 Backstroke
10. 100 Breaststroke
11. 400 IM
12. 200 Free Relay (also scratched)
13. 1000 Freestyle

The sprint distance meet on October 30th had distances of 50 yards or 100 yards for all events, except a few 200 yard events…relays and the 200 individual free.

Endurance, strength, speed, taper, recovery.

The link below takes you to the full article:

The Five Phases Of Swim Training – Triathlete.com

They have example workouts and detailed descriptions.

Normally I swim my 100s on about the order of 1:50 plus or minus a bit. Depends on how fatigued I am and how hard I’m trying. The week before my Malibu Triathlon during my taper week, I did swim some 100s on September 7th in 1:38, 1:37, 1:40 and 1:47. That 1:37 was my fastest ever until last week. I have gotten around 1:40-1:41 a number of times in the past month.

But last Thursday my coach told me to swim 100s on the 1:50s and he said depending on how fast I went, I may only get a few seconds rest. I had already done quite a bit of yardage in the workout, including a 1650 set, but I wasn’t feeling too tired. So I talked to myself and told myself, “OK, c’mon, let’s go.” I put my head down in the water and just tried really hard to go as fast as I could, because I knew 1:50 was going to be tough for me. Something really clicked on that first 100 that day. The water felt solid and I was grabbing onto it and just pulling myself through. It was amazing. I had felt something close to that on a few other occasions, most notably during my recent race at Malibu, but this time it was even better. It seemed I reached the end of the pool in no time, turned around, back to the other end in a blink. Repeat. When I finished my time on the clock was 1:14.

Now I’m a ditz about numbers when I’m in the middle of a hard workout. Somehow I didn’t feel like I’d done anything that amazing just then. I shouted at the coach, “Did you say to swim it on the 1:50s or the 1:15s?” He kind of laughed and asked if I’d really swum 100 or if I’d just swum 50. And due to my total lack of self-confidence in swimming, I immediately doubted myself and figured I’d screwed up. The rest of my 100s that day (about 4 more) were all on the order of 2 minutes. Much slower. And felt like flailing and frantic water-slapping. Ugg. It took some time at home that evening thinking about it until I really believed I’d actually done it. And later my coach agreed. So….

Now I have to try and repeat it. The peculiar thing, and this is true about both my 1:14 and also the swim at Malibu Tri, is that I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. I was kind of on auto-pilot just saying something like, “Go, go, go!” over and over to myself. I was just automatically doing SOMETHING but I’m not sure exactly what. It seems when I don’t think about what I’m doing, I do it right.

I said to my coach this past Monday, that I don’t know when I’m going to be able to do this again. He said that it will start to happen more and more often. Boy, I sure hope so. My 100s this week so far have all been in the 1:42-1:56 range. Of course, I’ve been tired, so that may have something to do with it. But still, that’s nothing close to what I did last Thursday.

I’m really intrigued by this concept of “holding the water” as Sheila Toarmina describes it. I heard her interviewed on the TriSwimCoach podcast and I have ordered her book Call The Suit. The article linked below talks about some of her ideas in respect to stroke technique:

Hold The Water!

I’m so excited to get this book. I can hardly wait.

I started swimming at the Mt. SAC pool over a year ago, when I found out that they had open lap swimming. Now I’m doing the Masters Swim program and it costs no more to do that than to use the pool for open lap swimming. In fact, they offer all kinds of programs. These programs used to be free to the public, but due to state budget cuts there is currently a fee. The fee is reasonable and the facility is nice. I just really love swimming here so much more than at the gym, and now that I’m getting coaching as well, it’s a no-brainer for me.

In addition to the Masters Swim and open lap swimming, they also offer water aerobics, low impact training, triathlete training and cardio vascular training.

Signup Options

Fall session starts on August 23, 2010. They will be offering the following options.

Open Fitness Swim: Even though the title for this “class” says “Open Fitness Swim” on the website registration, it is actually good for all of the programs listed above. Masters swim, triathlete training, water aerobics, etc. and just plain open lap swim on your own.

Hours for this option: Mon-Thur 11am-1pm, 6pm-8pm and Sat/Sun 8am-10:30. The cost is $110 for 8 weeks (August 23rd-October 17th). You can register for this option by clicking here. To see the evening hours you need to click on the “More” link.

Masters Swim: The Masters Swim option is really more than that. It includes all of the hours and training options from the Open Fitness Swim above, plus there is also an early weekday morning time slot that offers open lap swimming, Masters Swim and triathlete training on Mon-Thu at 5:30am-7:30am. The cost is $120 for 8 weeks (August 23rd to October 17th). You can register for this option by clicking here. The description at this link does not show the weekday afternoon and evening hours unless you click the “More” link.

Session Swim Cards: What if you don’t want to sign up for the whole 8 week session but would like to go swim at the pool every once in a while? Well, then you can buy a swim card that gets you 5, 10 or 20 swim sessions, depending on your preference. The costs are $20, $35 or $60, respectively. The swim cards are described here (click). They are good for all of the hours…Mon-Thur 5:30am-7:30am, 11am-1pm, 6pm-8pm and Sat/Sun 8am-10:30.

Masters Swimming

I want to talk a bit about Masters Swimming. It sounds intimidating. But it does not imply that you are good at swimming or fast or anything like that. Masters Swimming simply means you are at least 18 years old. You can be a beginning swimmer, a former competitive swimmer, or anything in between.

If you think that your swimming could use some improvement, and that you would benefit from some coaching, then you should give Masters Swimming a try. Don’t wait to get better or faster until you consider participating in Masters Swimming. You might as well take advantage of this program and get help with your swimming now. Don’t put it off!

The coach at Mt. SAC is Louis Boehle. He swam for California Baptist University, has experience with adventure racing and was also a member of a relay team that swam a double crossing from Cabrillo Beach to Catalina.

When you first come to workout Louis will probably ask you what you have been doing for your recent workouts and about your goals so he can choose an appropriate workout for you. I’ve found that he gives a lot of individual attention and encouragement. If you want to contact Louis with any questions you can send him email at l.d.boehle@gmail.com.

My swimming workouts this summer have mostly been under Louis’ guidance. Since my goal is to train for triathlon and hopefully get faster, I’ve been working out pretty hard. I’m really enjoying it, though. That’s why I signed up for this program. I needed someone to kick my butt in the pool, because I just don’t do it myself. Maybe that’s not what you want, but whatever it is I’m sure he’ll work with you to pick drills and sets that are suited to you.

Parking

You can buy a parking permit in Building 40 for $40 for the semester. The coin parking meters charge 25 cents for 15 minutes, and the day permits are $2 per day.

And then I started my Masters Swim workouts. And the coach was having me do a fair amount of kicking. Although I thought I didn’t really need to be doing kicking drills, I tried to just suck it up and say nothing. After all, I was seeking the expertise of the coach. He knows more about this than I do, right? That’s why I was doing the Masters Swim. Eventually I did ask him about it and he said I needed to keep that end of my body up, or something like that. So…ok. Still doubtful but…just doing the drills like he said.

Well, about a week or two ago I saw this article on TriSwimCoach.com that discusses this very thing. His point is that in triathlon while we don’t need the kick for propulsion, we do need it for balance. It will help a lot with the swim with just some bit of kicking. Really good article: A Little Kick Goes a Loooong Way in Triathlon Swimming

Then today someone on Daily Mile shared a link to this YouTube video of Dave Scott giving tips on kicking drills. Dave Scott being, of course, one of triathlon’s all time greats and 6-time winner of the Ironman World Championships at Kona. These kicking drills look really good. I think I would enjoy trying these.

Well, the kicking drills from Masters Swim are seeming to finally pay off for me. I’ve actually been feeling more balanced in the pool, like my back end is floating up higher. And the coach even told me a few days back that my kicking was looking good. Or did he say “better”? Maybe it’s not good, yet, but just better. Hahah.

But nothing brought home to me how important it is to keep the back end up when swimming like a drill he had me do this past Tuesday. He had me do a “pull” drill, with the paddles. But I was not kicking or using a pull buoy. Instead I had to cross my legs at the ankles and just let them trail behind me. This was VERY tough. My legs just sank. I could not really swim. I was almost vertical in the water at some points. He told me I had to pick my tempo up and have a faster turnover (faster stroke). I tried and that did help some. But wow, how much harder it was to stroke and pull with all that dragging.

Now one thing I did notice was that a lot of the reading material encouraged drills. The TriSwimCoach specifically encouraged doing as much drills as you could stand. And other sites also recommended drills for improving stroke technique and efficiency. It makes sense. In running I do speedwork on the track and I would say that is analagous to drills in the pool. I know that speedwork really does help me. I have to assume with all these articles recommending swim drills that that would help me, too.

But I really hate drills. Or at least, when I was trying to figure out swimming on my own, I really, really disliked them and almost never did them. I would maybe do a few laps of drills. Less than 1/4 of my workout for sure. Maybe much less than that. And then freestyle all the way, baby, because that seems to be the most fun to me.

Well, the coach at Masters Swim has me doing lots of drills. And I chose Masters Swim to help me, so I’m going along with everything the coach recommends. He’s supposed to be the one who knows a lot more about swimming than I do. I also post my workouts on the DailyMile.com site, and try to list out all the drills, etc. on my workouts.

So today @bfrien asked me on Twitter:

@sheswimbikerun Do U find that the drills actually help? Fists, kicking, etc Would U rather just work on endurance? Im just not into drills

Well, Bob, I’m sure at least some of the drills are helping. I know that some of the drills have got me lifting my arms up higher out of the water and in the ocean swimming this is really helping so that I don’t drag my arm or hand through the water. And the angle that my hand enters the water has changed, to good effect I think. And I’m pulling better through my stroke. I can increase the turnover/tempo of my stroke when I really think about it (hoping this becomes more automatic, soon). I think I’m developing a better feel for the water, which definitely helps to work with the water and have less resistance.

I’m not sure about all the drills he tells me to do (they vary from day to day). He’s had me do some butterfly and breaststroke drills (if you ever want to see something funny come watch me try to do butterfly). I did ask him specifically about why he was having me do those for triathlon (he KNOWS I’m a triathlete and we focus on that a lot). He said for cross-training and building some of my other muscles. There are other drills I’ve asked about, too. Haven’t asked about the fist swimming, but I think the point of that is to develop a feel for the water on the underside of the forearm to improve the stroke.

Also, I had the opportunity a while back to do a swim workout with Coach Gareth at UCLA. He had us start with drills. First kicking only on the left side, a few laps. Then on the right side, a few laps. Then swimming with only one arm stroking. First left side for a few laps, then on the right. Then we did catch-up drills. Then we switched to doing “nearly” catchup, with focus on getting a rhythm going. This was kinda cool, and for a bit I had this really nice rhythm going and it felt fantastic. I think that getting a rhythm like that down would help a lot with cutting down resistance in the water and helping the speed be better. I want to try and repeat that swim session some time on my own. Haven’t felt that way since, but haven’t really tried to repeat it. But doing the drills…building up to the “nearly catchup” was the key. So the selected drills for that buildup workout really did help.

In summary, I know much of the drill stuff is helping and I’m just trying to put my trust and faith in the coach, which is why I signed up for Masters Swim in the first place. I know he has much more knowledge of swimming than I do.

I’m planning on re-upping at the end of this term. I think it is helping me lots more than when I was just trying to figure out swimming on my own.

Me on the left & Nina (Twitter friend) on the right at Santa Monica Ocean Swim.

So I bought an xTerra Vortex 3 last Friday, June 26, 2009. And I was eager to try it out. Wanted to make sure it fit properly and was easy to move around and swim in it. So I planned to go to Huntington State Beach on Monday and get in a short ocean swim.

The original plan was to hit the beach before noon, short swim, picnic lunch with Jenny on the beach, play and relaxation time before heading home. Unfortunately, due to a comedy of errors, we didn’t actually get to Huntington until 3 PM. I talked to the Life Guard briefly, put my wetsuit on, and ventured out.

In watching the surf before I suited up, the breakers hadn’t looked too large to me. So about 20 minutes later I was wading into the surf. Life guard had said water temp was 62˚. It didn’t feel cold to me at all, especially with the suit on. Waves still looked ok, and I proceeded out to my chest. I felt the cold water coming through the suit at the zipper on the back. Just interesting, not a problem. Kept going and got out past most of the breakers. But there was one row left to get past, and they seemed pretty big. I was not comfy with it. I decided to go back in and try ocean swimming in my suit another day.

I did feel good about the suit, though. It fit nicely and I was able to move easily in the water. Arms didn’t feel restricted. In fact, while I was trying to get out past the waves, I didn’t even think about the suit at all. I wasn’t even aware of it or that I was wearing it. The waves had my full attention. The suit does feel a bit loose around the lower legs when the water comes in, but I think that is OK. It’s kind of interesting how the suit expands/stretches and adjust on you when it gets wet.

Jenny and I did stay at the beach for another hour just relaxing and playing in the sand, but it was getting cold and windy and unpleasant. So we left a bit after 5 pm and met up with the hubby for dinner. I considered the ocean experience a success, even though I didn’t actually swim. Baby steps. I will just keep at this until I’m comfortable and good at it.

Well, through the magic of Twitter I found a friend who lives in the L.A. area and belongs to the L.A. Tri Club. She convinced me to come out on Wed. morning July 1st for an open water swim at Santa Monica Beach. Wow. I had to get there at 6 am. Left my house just after 5 am for the drive. Was worried about traffic, but I think I got lucky and made it in only 45 minutes. This swim is attended by over 100 members & guests of the L.A. Tri Club. It is a regular weekly event. The surf conditions were pretty decent that morning. Not as calm as ideal, but not too bad.

I really liked being with a group. I stayed towards the back and entered the water after most other people. But it was good to be going in with others. The waves weren’t too high, but still…it gave me confidence to see other people successfully going through the waves. Made me say to myself, “If they can do this, so can I.” So I dove right in, jumped through the waves, and headed out.

The swim we were doing is described as a triangle. There is a buoy 250 meters from the shore which is one point of the triangle. Two cones are placed on the beach about 100 yards apart for the other two points. Start at one cone, swim out on a slant to the buoy, swim from the buoy in to shore to the other cone, then run to the first cone. This completes the circuit. Do one circuit or more.

Well, I was swimming out there, and most of the other swimmers were faster. I was getting left behind. And my goggles were letting water in. So I was fidgeting with them. It seemed like I still had breakers to get over, but I guess not. It was just a decent sized rolling swell. And I couldn’t see the buoy any more. I could follow the other swimmers. But I couldn’t see how far I needed to go…my goal. It seemed so far away. I thought, “Maybe this is enough for today. I can just turn around now and get out.” But when I looked behind me I saw that I was quite far from shore. At least halfway to the buoy for sure. Oh, what the heck. I might as well just finish and swim to the buoy.

So I kept going. Mind you, I hadn’t even really broken in to freestyle yet. I wasn’t very big on putting my face in the water. The goggles weren’t working very well and I was afraid of losing a contact lens. And the water is very salty. Tastes bad. I was dog paddling, breast stroking, side stroking, back stroking. And mostly keeping the head up. I guess I put it down 2 or 3 times on the way out to the buoy, but not for long.

Eventually I saw the buoy and the current had pushed me past it. I thought, “Gosh, I’m not even going to go around the buoy. Bummer.” Then I decided the heck with that, I certainly WAS going to go around the buoy. So I had to swim back and around it. There was a club member treading water out there with a waterproof camera. He said some encouraging things to me and I told him this was my first time swimming out to an ocean buoy. He said it was too bad the conditions weren’t very good. I was kind of surprised. I didn’t think it was that bad.

And around the buoy and back towards shore. I did try freestyle a couple of times, and put my face down in the water briefly. But again, the goggles just weren’t working right for me. I decided backstroke was OK and mostly backstroked it in. Getting in past the breakers wasn’t too hard. Overall a success. I wasn’t panicked during this swim like during my triathlon and I felt like I could possibly do another circuit. But I decided not to. I decided to stop at one this time. Next time I’ll do two.

Afterwards I waited and said good-bye to Nina (my Twitter friend) and her husband and then I did a five mile run along the shore. I went up past the Santa Monica Pier. Last time I was there was when I did the Santa Monica 10K Classic in April 2006.

Anyhow, this whole experience was so positive, and I want to do it again. So I joined the L.A. Tri Club that afternoon. I am planning to attend a number of their training events. I’ve RSVP’d for next Wednesday’s “Ocean 101” and I hope that this Sunday I will go out and do their “Chicken of the Sea” swim. I figure I gotta just keep doing this and the more I do it the more comfortable I’ll become and I’ll get pretty good at it.

But after that is past, I will want to work up and improve my swimming and speed. I have seen recommended several times to do drills. Drills I’ve seen recommended for beginners are kick drills done on the side with no kickboard, shark fin drill, and also DPS (Distance Per Stroke).

So here is a nice site that has some explanations/suggestions for swim drills:Drills & Drill Tips | WSU Masters Swimming

They explain at the site above the side-kicking drill and the shark fin drill. The DPS is just the idea that you want to lower the number of strokes it takes you to get across the pool. By rotating your body in the pool from side to side while you stroke, having long strokes that pull, and you glide. Get fewer strokes to get across the pool.

So I guess after I finish up this tri coming up I will try to incorporate some drills into my swim training.