The Swimming Thread - Pool/OW

[Scabutz]

chandrew said:

Our pool has been closed for the last fortnight with the Swiss government ruling meaning that it won't open before May. The lake here is frozen still and with temperatures at night still at around -13 it's unlikely to melt anytime soon.

Issue is that I have a place on the 26km Zurich Marathon Swim at the beginning of August and I was just starting to ramp up the training when the ban occurred. I've been spending the winter skiing and riding skeleton and only doing a few swims a week (plus I cracked a rib in December which didn't help). The autumn was spent swimming in the lakes until they completely froze so I didn't really get any distance in especially during the last month or so when it went below 5 degrees water temp.

Any ideas of how to get training done for distance swimming without access to water would be gratefully received. I'm doing a bit of cross-country skiing and yoga with the missus plus some snow-shoe walking up now-closed ski slopes.

Part of me is hoping that the event gets cancelled so I'm not the one pulling out or not having enough fitness to get through the cut-off times.

Difficult really. Could do some dry land based stuff with bands, plenty of exercises on the Internet to follow. Stationary bike to keep up the cardio fitness.

Unfortunately swimming is something you have to do to get better at, dont get a great deal of cross over from other training.

[Salted_Peanut]

It's tricky, isn't it? Even the open water venues seem to have closed in the UK (presumably because of the changing facilities?)

[Scabutz]

Salted_Peanut said:

It's tricky, isn't it? Even the open water venues seem to have closed in the UK (presumably because of the changing facilities?)

My local OW venue hadn't opened yet but is a cable ski place too and they have closed for everything.

[onedsla]

Anybody else been swimming in the ocean yet, assuming it's still open?

[Scabutz]

onedsla said:

Anybody else been swimming in the ocean yet, assuming it's still open?

Going to be far too cold for that isnt it. Suspect as well the police if they see you will tell you ps off.

[dirty boy]

All my swimmers have become really bad runners.

My son is making some good progress in the strength training, he's just 14 and rattled off 100 press-ups in one go this morning! He only managed thirty something two weeks ago

My daughter is finding it tough to motivate herself though, she's not really suited to being on land

[redback911]

onedsla said:

Anybody else been swimming in the ocean yet, assuming it's still open?

Yup, its bloody cold. ;-)





Just for the clarification, the beach is 10 minute trek from my house and its very isolated in deepest darkest West Cumbria.

Plus the wolf keeps an eye out for interlopers. ;-)

Edited by redback911 on Friday 17th April 17:40

[Highway Star]

Given the nearest sea to me is at least 90 minutes drive, I'll be on dry land for a while

Am doing rowing machine to keep up some cardio, cycle rides with my 5 year old which although isn't cardio is still a nice way to keep moving for 5 miles a day or so and then some resistance band exercises set by my club for the kids.

I do miss swimming so much though.

[Jakg]

Highway Star said:

I do miss swimming so much though.

I've only started recently (and an by no means any god!), but was pleased to break 100KM (total, not in one go obviously).

Health issues kept me out of the pool for a lot of this year, couple more sessions and then lockdown

Even tried a run today.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Highway Star said:

Given the nearest sea to me is at least 90 minutes drive, I'll be on dry land for a while

Am doing rowing machine to keep up some cardio, cycle rides with my 5 year old which although isn't cardio is still a nice way to keep moving for 5 miles a day or so and then some resistance band exercises set by my club for the kids.

I do miss swimming so much though.

I am going for some intense cycling sessions (1 Hr max) and interspersing those with HIIT style land sessions (I managed to get hold of many different variations of the Insanity and P90X series of home workouts). Not much of it is really "swim specific" but I generally find that kind of stuff to just be overly complicated and without knowing if it actually makes a difference. You can't really mimic being in the water and feeling the water.

So I just go for cycling for the cardio
HIIT (Insanity/P90X/Random YT circuits by swimming based channels) for a bit of Athleticism
Then "Physio" type stuff: Stretching, external rotations, foam rollers etc. The stuff for shoulder health mainly.

I do have some stretchcordz ("olympic strength" ones, so they're fairly strong). And you can generally do the correct pulling motion for the strokes except backstroke really (unless you want to set up something elaborate to get the body in the right position).

A really nice little channel I found on YT is this one:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCubMDoAB8CyWxL8Wz...

Just the 92 subs! but I quite liked this little routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPCH6wh0dIo

Missing the water though, this is the longest I have gone without the pool for, probably, well... going all the way back to when i was 13 when we trained 3 times a week and had the school holidays completely off. When I was 14, we got a new coach and went to 10 sessions a week, with 2 per week during the off season and I have basically swum multiple times per week since!

[R Mutt]

Not sure I'd want to drive to the sea (1h) to have aggro with the police but going for a swim will be the first thing I do when restrictions are eased and I doubt pools will be the first things to open.

[chandrew]

redback911 said:

Yup, its bloody cold. ;-)





Just for the clarification, the beach is 10 minute trek from my house and its very isolated in deepest darkest West Cumbria.

Plus the wolf keeps an eye out for interlopers. ;-)

Edited by redback911 on Friday 17th April 17:40

Cold?

This was my swimming spot for most of the last month. I usually managed 10 minutes at a go.


Then 10 days ago my favourite swimming spot started to melt and I got to enjoy this:



I've been getting a swim on average every other day since. On the weekend I managed to do two swims, one of 1km and the other of 700m. I start head up until I'm sure I have my breathing in control but the snow patches make really good sighting points.



Needless to say I don't have problems keeping my distance.

[redback911]

chandrew said:

Cold?

I've been getting a swim on average every other day since. On the weekend I managed to do two swims, one of 1km and the other of 700m. I start head up until I'm sure I have my breathing in control but the snow patches make really good sighting points.



Needless to say I don't have problems keeping my distance.

Not too bad in the sea, around 8-9 currently. I can swim for 20-30 minutes before getting out.

Woah... Thats a beautiful swim spot, but you must be channelling Wim Hof to stay in that water for so long.

[Barchettaman]

Normally I would be enjoying swimming in one of the heated outdoor pools here in Frankfurt; Covid-19 means that they´re all shut.

One ray of hope, in Austria the outdoor pools will be opening from the end of May. Let´s hope Germany follows suit.

I have about 6 outdoor pools within a 30 minute ride of me, ranging from 25m to 180m in length, so am normally pretty spoilt for choice, at the moment....none are open!

[krallicious]

Barchettaman said:

Normally I would be enjoying swimming in one of the heated outdoor pools here in Frankfurt; Covid-19 means that they´re all shut.

One ray of hope, in Austria the outdoor pools will be opening from the end of May. Let´s hope Germany follows suit.

I have about 6 outdoor pools within a 30 minute ride of me, ranging from 25m to 180m in length, so am normally pretty spoilt for choice, at the moment....none are open!

I always used the Freibad in Hausen from spring through Autumn and the Rebstock/TG Bornheim in Winter. If you arrived early enough, you had to pool to yourself!

I now have a lot of lakes to choose from but they are all off limits for the time being. I have a triathlon that's been postponed until September but I can't see that going ahead this year as Germany has banned all events over 5000 people until the end of October.

[chandrew]

redback911 said:

Not too bad in the sea, around 8-9 currently. I can swim for 20-30 minutes before getting out.

Woah... Thats a beautiful swim spot, but you must be channelling Wim Hof to stay in that water for so long.

Like anything it's about training. For me the most important part is to carry on through the autumn. I try and go every day then and don't notice the dropping temperature. I had one day in early December when I had to break through ice to get to the last remaining open part but by that stage I was quite used to the cold. I don't try to be a hero and certainly don't feel that I need to challenge myself.

That being said the lake that I'm swimming in is peat-based and warms up really quickly. Yesterday - about 3 weeks since it melted - it was 12 degrees so quite pleasant. I've managed two 2km+ swims over the last few days.

The biggest issue is that I've lost my speed. After my Windermere swim last year I concentrated on open water until it was impossible due to ice in late December. However given the temperatures the distances dropped significantly. January and Feb free time was spent doing skeleton and skiing. March was no swimming due to the pool closure so I'm really only now putting in some distance.

I still have no clear view on whether the Zurich marathon swim will be held this year which was my training goal. I think as long as the temperatures don't drop it should be possible to get the needed training in to do the distance but I need to ensure that I can clear the cut-off times. If it pushed back a month that would be helpful. I wouldn't be disappointed if it was pushed until next year.

[FunkyNige]

Duncan Goodhew has some routines up on the Swimathon Facebook page if you want some different ideas

https://www.facebook.com/SwimathonChallenge/

[Salted_Peanut]

I wonder if we're on the cusp of being able to open water swim ... ?

Also, could anyone recommend an app for logging multi sport workouts? I had been using the Nike Training Club app until it became too irritating.

[redback911]

Salted_Peanut said:

I wonder if we're on the cusp of being able to open water swim ... ?

Also, could anyone recommend an app for logging multi sport workouts? I had been using the Nike Training Club app until it became too irritating.

Go to app for most ins Strava. Its capable of syncing with most devices/platforms.

OW in The Lakes Cumbria is now doable and lake/tarn temperatures range from 11-13 degrees. Been sea swimming in April but great to back in Coniston and Windermere again.

[redback911]

Coniston Water in Cumbria was around 12 degrees yesterday. Great in the shallows but a tad chilly in the deeper areas.



This is summary of the swim via Strava.



A big discussion about the platform now as some of the free-to-use features are about disappear behind a paywall. Its still probably worth using instead of the Nike platform.