How to swim 1500m freestyle without an oxygen tank

It depends.Not the answer you're looking for I'm sure but the best answer for your broad question. How long have you been swimming? How well do you swim? Are you a sprinter or distance swimmer? Are you comfortable with your stroke or feel you have some more learning to do? All these questions have to be answered before you can decided whether you can swim 1500 m and not drown. I can swim 1500 m regularly, I don't do it very often cause it gets boring in the pool. The reason I can swim that long without stopping is because I have a really comfortable stroke that allows me to breathe in water like I do in air. OK, so I don't breathe in water but for me there is not a difference because the first thing I learned when I learned how to swim is how to breath comfortably. To me this is the most important thing. It goes before speed, stamina, etc. You have got to perfect a stroke that allows you to breathe as easily when you're swimming as when you're walking on land. So how's your breathing? Ovetta.

300m at a time......

Take your time building up to the distance.
Be patient. It will come.

Practice, practice, practice.

Hire a coach!
Learn the proper technique and a 1500m will come a lot easier.
For a list of coaches check my site www.triswimcoach.com.

Cheers,
Kevin
www.triswimcoach.com

I'm with... everyone! You'll get there in time. We promise!! But we empathize. One of the things that I do to help with my breathing, building endurance is that I swim a lap 'hard' and then have a recovery lap, etc. It seems to build up my endurance slowly.

As for me, I'm a (relatively) slow swimmer and I do my mile swim in about 45 minutes. It's weird though--even if I swim 'harder' I don't really go much faster, because my stroke is pretty flawed. So I'm going to try to hit a Total Immersion weekend, and then I hope to see hearty improvements!

Dana

Dana,
Nice job on signing up for the TI weekend.
Be prepared for a TON of information and to be a bit overwhelmed when you leave.
However, with lots of practice and patience, you will tremendously improve your stroke from this clinic.

Cheers,
Kevin
www.triswimcoach.com

If you can get the hang of bilateral breathing it makes it a lot easier! Just do it for a lap or two at first and try and build up. If you can bilateral breathe it gives you more time to exhale your breath underwater and you also get in a nice rhythm without hyperventilating.
It takes a while to build up to 1500, but one day you may find that 1500 doesn't feel like a long enough swim!! I now swim 1500 in about 27 minutes, but that was training for a long distance swim so I had to cover 2500-3000 each training session! Practice makes faster but technique is important. The main problem with swimming is that it gets BORING!

During swimming sessions with tri club, they have this bilateral breathing drill to help navigation and improve your stamina
3-5-7 swim drill
first breathe on the 3rd count then breathe on the 5rd count and finally breathe on the 7th count if you can without gasping for air first!!!
For me I have problems even breathing on the 3rd count and I usually breathe on the left side still not used to breathing on the right side and most of the guys can only breathe up to the 5th count.
If you can do it on the 7th count, then you must have a really good set of lungs......
yes it gets boring after a while which is why I swim with a tri group so that we can enjoy er or is it suffer together....

I teach swim lessons and the most important thing in swimming is having a consistant pattern to your stroke and exhaling ALL your air each time! When I teach adults, that seems to be the hardest part. It's instinctive to "hold your breath". Practice relaxing the muscles in your chest and imagine the air flowing out smoothly each time. You should be ready for a short but full breath each time to turn your head to breath. Find a pattern that lets you breath when you need to. I personally can start out with "one, two ,three, breath" but as I go along and get more tired, I have to breath more often. Even if you have to breath every stroke its ok, but exhale each time. My husband runs the NYC city marathon each and he couldn't swim a length of the pool to save his soul! Breathing in water is totally different than on land. You have to train your lungs to adapt to the waters viscosity. When you swim, try to add one more length each time.Good luck. I'm struggling with my running, so I can empathize!

My hope is to get there little by little. I am first going to try to swim 800m without stopping by taking an 800 meter set and breaking it into fewer and fewer sub-sets. I started with 16X50, and this week I did it in 6 subsets: 200-150-100-105-100-100.

I have the opposite problem than you, Dana. I swim too fast. Like most beginners, I have one speed. After adopting TI, I can make one length of the pool (25M) in 13 strokes... When I do laps, it usually balloons to between 16 - 20 strokes... I checked my watch after the first 200 of my set above, and noticed that I did it in 3:34. That seems quick to me. But I feel like I am swimming as slow as I can without letting my feet sink. The down side is that I can't (yet) go that far that fast, so I am building.

As for breathing, I read somewhere (on TI's website, I think) that it is perfectly OK to breathe every other stroke, so that I what I do. I just breathe to the same side *of the pool* at all times. This means that half my lengths are breathing to the right, and the other half are breathing to the left. And I have found that if I can relax and empty my lungs (not always intuitively capatible, mind you) breathing is somewhat easier.

I had a swim team coach once who taught me this great drill for timing my breathing and getting comfortable with it. At first we called it the Drowning Drill because it came really hard for everyone, but once we learned it everything became much easier. It goes like this:

Put one arm flat against your side and swim with only one arm.

Sound easy? Heh heh heh. I swallowed half the pool trying to learn this. Hopefully you're more coordinated. The trick is to breathe very early in your stroke, while you're still extending your arm. It's the only way to maintain your balance and get a full breath. You wind up swimming more on your side, which is good, and you improve your breath timing a lot. Once you can do it on one side, try the other side. When you go back to swimming with both arms, (a) you're just so damn relieved; and (b) your body has learned to do things a little more naturally. I still do this drill nearly every time I get in the pool.

Ah, the one arm drill is one of the swimming drills that is done during swim training. it forces you to rotate on your side and yes you drink lots of water. It's not easy at all.