Testing Yourself With A "Mock Triathlon" ...

I have thought of doing this over that last month. I needed to get my swimming down or rather yardage up. I don't know if I could swim 500 yds yet straight in a pool. Actually pretty sure I couldn't. However, once I get to that point I am wanting to do something like that. Another problem is I don't swim where I lift or run. That will change eventually when I join this new kick ass Y they just built 5 min's from my office. I'm still under another membership now.
It is a good question though, I haven't heard anyone else mention it.

By the way, congrats on making the 500 yrds. I have swam about 8 times and right now I can make it 150. I guess if someone dropped me 500 yards out in a lake I could make it to shore if I had too . I think sometimes pushing yourself when you are training alone can make it difficult to go the extra yards unless you just say.....I'm doing it, that's it.

Give 500m continuous a try. As I said, I had never swam longer than 150m before. I just said "I'm going to do it no matter what". The condition was "I could do some backstroke if I needed". Now, obviously my immediate goal is to swim 500m all freestyle (or to swi 1000m "any way possible").

Swimming the long distance was much easier than I thought. You get a point to where it's hard to breathe, but you "swim through it" and you get into a relaxing comfort zone where it all just seems to flow.

It's like when you are on the bike and your legs are burning, you keep pedaling and it flushes the lactic acid out. Practicing this makes it easier to fight through the discomfort.

If you continually stop when it becomes uncomfortable, then your body will reach a state of "uncomfortableness" at lower and lower levels of exertion. In other words your body will figure out "Hey, if a create some discomfort, he'll stop". The body is the ultimate self-preservationist. In weight-lifting this is described as the "Grow or Die" response (stimulus-response). You give your body a choice, "adapt or drown".

Ironically, likely the best way to build some confidence would be for someone to dump you a mile into a lake and make you swim to shore. No doubt, you'd make it, and it'd put some perspective on what you can and cannot handle. [Note: At slowtwith I asked the question regarding the best way to increase swimming distance ... intervals, progressive continuous swims, changing strokes over longer distances, etc ... everyone has a different way of doing things)

I train alone too, and I always think "Your competition can/is doing it". I figure the less time it takes me to swim 1000m-1500m (continuous), the better off I'll be. No since in putting off.

Some time in the next week, put the heat on yourself and say "I'm going to swim for as long as I can even if I have to switch strokes to something where it's easier to breath". It will do wonders for you confidence and motivation. I may try and swim continuously for 30 minutes next time at a nice, easy pace.

I am going to give this a try. I knew about but didn't relate the example you just described about the body adjusting. Very true and my mind and body are very convincing at times. Your goals are about the same as mine. I would like eventually to be able on my long slow swim day to be able to swim 1500 meters non stop and obviously swim 500 pretty quick and effcient. I don't need to be first or even top whatever out of the water but I want to be consistant and have my body ready for the ride/run. Thanks.

FWIW, I did it again today.

I Planned to swim 1x100m of 5 different swim drills for a total of 500m. (I'm finally thinking in terms of 100m, rather than 50m and 25m. Hopefully soon, I'll think in terms of 200m and 400m).

After 150m of drills, I was feeling tired. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it had something to do with me being up at 1:30am and waking at 5:30am. I know, it's a stretch.

Anyway, for my punishment, I made myself swim 500m continuous, all freestlye, no stops, no kick turns, no push of the walls, etc. I did it. Halfway through I didn't think I was going to make it, but I remembered my advice to you. If I stopped now, I'll quit again in the future. Once I got past 300m, it was a breeze. Amazing how easy it is on the second half of a distance.

I swam it in 13:37, but I lost count and I think I swam an extra 50m.

Now, that the 500m threshold has been crossed, I'll up it 100m every week, until I'm cruising 1500m (hoping that progression is somewhat linear ... although it rarely is).

Once you remove your mental limitiations, it's amazing what the body can do. That's the bad thing about a mind, too often it gets in the way of one can really accomplish.

That is awesome and gives me some hope. I just had my first coaching session today and she was pleasantly suprised that I could swim. I just need to work on relaxing my upper back and neck muscles more. I work to much with just my arms. I will get there but with hearing your results and some drills to work on I will get there soon. I bet it is nice to think in terms of 100's and 200's rather than the 25's and 50's. One just seems to sound better than the other. It shouldn't be a suprise that it is as much mental as physical when you consider what we are training for. The whole race will be mental.

My local tri club meets as a group during the year and does several "mini" triathlons for training purposes. Just don't over do it!

Still Tri'n
Michael