I'm progressing with swimming, but have a few questions

While wearing swim trunks and not doing flip turns? Damn hard.

Do flip turns. I know you don't do 'em in open water, but it forces your breathing to stay regular (which it is during an OWS), and causes you to deal with lactate buildup better. You have plenty of yardage ahead to drop another 7 minutes - at that point, I swam about 150,000 yards and it was worth about 8 s / 100. Keep it going.

I also have a different philosophy: If you swim 10/10 every swim for the next 100,000 yards, you'll drop x seconds. If you swim 8/10 the next 100,000 yards, you'll drop slightly less than x seconds. If you swim 5/10, it will be lots less. I believe that just straight yardage can only get you so far - get ready to seriously suffer in the pool.

Yardage is meaningless without good technique. Technique always comes first in swimming. Have you had anyone look at your stroke?

I think 25 minutes may be do able, but under 20 is going to be real tough.  As of now you have made great improvements on your times, but if you keep working hard you will keep chipping away at your time.  

x2 on the technique part.  It is a lot easier and faster to swim when you have the technique down pat.  Good luck!

And unless you get semi good at flip turns I honestly would not worry about them.  I have seen way to many people attempt them, roll on their sides, push off about 3 feet and come up, etc.  That is not going to help at all, it will most likely hurt your time in the long run.

oh and get a jammer, you will be super surprised at how much drag those shorts really have, no matter how low resistance you may think they really are.  

it looks like you have made great progress in the short time you have been swimming! congrats!

since you are progressing and will most likely be swimming more as you prepare for your tris, i would def. recommend getting someone (seasoned swimmer, coach, etc.) to look at your stroke. jammers and flip turns will help but getting the right technique down is most important. not only for speed but for injury prevention

it is FAR easier to make corrections in the beginning than months or years down the road. once you have the mechanics down, think about speed.

its hard to tell anyone you can or can't be "this fast." with swimming, you get out what you put in, sometimes it takes awhile but it will come. as you get faster, those large time drops are going to harder to achieve but i would never tell anyone its impossible. if you work hard, i think you can get there. and i think its great that you have a sub 20 min goal!

are you on a specific training plan now?

Agree 100%.  The #1 thing to improve your time is your technique.
#2 after that is some kind of speedo (jammer, whatever.)

Flipturns are good to learn, but you won't shave major time off your overall just by learning turns.

Agree again that technique will be the best way to improve.  When I switched from shorts to jammers, it was an instant 5 second/100m drop in time.

For the flip turns, it really depends on how good at them you are.  I swim with some guys who can swim at a similar pace to me - one of them does open turns and I get a full body length ahead of him on every turn.  Another does flip turns but not great ones - I get at least a half body length on him.  I see other people doing flip turns that aren't right at all and I'm certain they are slowing themselves down.

Technique is everything, but you should be working on fitness also.

What are your 100 and 400/500y times? How were your splits during that mile swim? For example if your 100 all out time (no dive) is under 1:10/100y and your 400y time is late 5 mins or low 6 mins then your current technique is good for taking another minute (or more) off your 400y time (which is directly relevant to your 1500m time, infact decreasing times in any distance over 100 will net you a faster 1500m). You do this by doing a couple of HARD threshold (CSS) interval swims during the week, 100y, 200y or 400y sets. Other days can be used for technique and of course you can work to maintain technique through these sets also. Good distance swimmers timings/100 in a distance race are only seconds off their full out sprint times normally.

I'm in kindof the same situation as yourself. I did a few competitions and that when I was younger (13-14), lifeguarding and stuff later and just came back at 26 now after 9-10 years of doing no swimming at all. That was 2 months or so ago and my times have dropped every week by working hard on threshold workouts. 100y 1:03 / 200y 2:14 / 400y 4:47  and today I did a 1500m (metres) TT in 23:12. I've been consistently training about 5-6 days a week for 2 months now. I concentrate on techinique alot, but if you're already a decently good swimmer (which you seem to be) you should start incorporating speed (threshold) workouts.

From what I hear through consistent training 20 minutes is acheiveable with about 10-15kyards/week, but anywhere under requires a good bit more commitment and you will definitely need a coach for going anywhere under 20.

Edited by ex-buzz 2010-04-09 10:11 AM

Also these threads on another triathlon forum have helped me alot, they're very long, but the advice in them is from some very knowledgeable people! A1! Both threads are relevant to your 1500m times.

Sub 6min 400m to sub 5min over winter?
swim speed - 100m vs oly swim times

Edited by ex-buzz 2010-04-09 10:31 AM

You can absolutely shave lots of time off if you sport a good flipturn.  Particularly since we are talking SCY.