Beginner 1/2 Ironman Plan Group (Page 11)

While I maybe 20 years your junior, I did just start swiming in June. I have always had solid cardio, but swimming has always been tough for me. Before dedicating myself to improving on the swim, I would be very short of breath after a 50. My previous swim experience would entail swimming 1 lap breaststroke 1 lap freestyle and so on for about an hour. My advice would be: don't do this!

In June I signed up for a HIM and realized that my swim would have to improve leaps and bounds in order to be able to be able to finish. I went from barely being able to swim a 100, to being able to swim the 1.2 miles very comfortabley.

I did so by swimming freestyle exclusively, and swimming 3+ times a week. The first few sessions were very frustrating, it was embarassing having to stop and take a break every lap or so, knowing the lifeguards were wondering if they were going to have to pull me out. After about two weeks of forcing myself to swim freestyle exclusively, I had improved so much that I could swim (slowly) for about 45 minutes to an hour. I firmly believe that if you dedicate yourself to improving on the technique and swiming one stroke exclusively your body will home in on efficiency. As your stroke gets more and more efficient distance/time becomes exponentially easier. To clarify, I swam as much freestyle as I could, when I could go no further I rested until I could go again then repeated ad nauseum.

I would highly recommend talking to someone who knows how to swim, as watching some youtube videos on technique (that is if you can't spring for a coach). Technique has come for me in bursts. At first it was figuring out how to breathe on both sides, next it was where my arms should be in relation to each other at any given time, after that came kicking. Now I'm working on my upper body rotation and how that works with kicking--if I ever figure this out I'm sure I'll find something else that needs work.

It takes a lot of hard work to ingrain a movement into muscle memory. My college coach said 10,000 repetitions before a motion becomes natural/subconcious. If you put in the hours you will improve; focus on tackling one thing at a time and don't deviate from it until it's correct (i.e. feels easy/natural/smooth). One thing that has taken literally years for me to grasp is that when training, you should constantly be thinking about form and technique--this sounds obvious but for me it was not. Learning to recognize how you are moving and what you are doing right/wrong is a huge component of improvement and takes a collosal amount of self awareness.

Best of luck to you! I hope this helps, I'm not an expert by any means but was in your shoes just a few months ago.