Showering during long sessions

doctorchick

All,

I have recently started to include a lot of swimming in my weekly workouts - am thinking of maybe giving triathlon a go for 2012. Almost all the swimming is done in the pool. I try to mix up my sessions, with speed sessions as well as long sessions. I do try and do one long session per week. It is not always about distance, but more endurance sessions, and can spend 2/3 hours at a time in the pool. Is there any general advice about showering during that time just to wash off the chlorine etc from the skin, or is the 2/3 hours too short to have to worry about any potential ill effects of being in the chlorine soup ?

DC

amdublin

I wouldn't worry about it

promethius

can i ask how long or what experience you have of swimming competetively? they're awfully long pool sessions you're doing there and if you're not used to that kind of thing it could give you pretty bad shoulder problems especially if your technique is not very developed or you have crossing or catch problems.
What distance triathlons are you aiming for?
Good luck in your training and fair play for taking on a tri you will really enjoy the whole experience the training and of course the races!

doctorchick

I have never swam competitively (but have been swimming regularly for many years), but would rather use swimming as a cross training session when I was running competitively. I was a very competitive sprinter but now getting longer in the tooth I have switched to longer distances as I no longer have the speed (and most would say I don't have speed in my longer distances now either ). It is only in the last six months or so that the lengths of my swims have increased, and to be perfectly honest this happened more by accident than design. I was just in the pool one day and had been thinking about tri and wanted to see how I felt after a good long swim, so before I knew it I had swam a few very slow kilometres (wanted to make sure I completed at least the distance of an olympic tri swim so just slowed everything down), and felt tired but good afterwards. Since then I have just thrown a long swim in once a week. Looking back through the training log the longest swims have been closer to 2 hours than 3, but these are swims much slower than my normal swimming pace. I am still thinking as a runner and using them as my long slow run equivalent to try and build endurance, and am more than happy to be advised they are really doing me no good. I will say though that in the past 2-3 weeks I am covering similar distances to the first longer slow swims in a faster time, which is probably a reflection in my increased swim fitness.

I have had my technique looked at by a few swim coaches I trust and have not really had any negative feedback, so hopefully form is not an issue. However I did notice on my first really long duration swim that my form was starting to suffer at the end of the session and I did curtail it so as not to do any damage. I have not suffered any shoulder problems so far, but will keep it in mind as something to look out for.

As for a triathlon distance I have not really given this too much thought. For a first it is going to be something fairly short. My bike and run fitness would easily see me through a sprint or olympic and so that would most likely be what I would target. I think maybe the jump from never doing a tri to a half is too severe and so would look to work up to it (maybe)

I am probably approaching this all wrong, but am lucky to have Seb Locteau as a good friend and will be bending his ear for training plans. I am enjoying training more than I have for many years when doing single discipline events, particularly the swimming, which again is probably one of the reasons I have been doing longer than normal sessions.

promethius

fair play to you, you've done it right, building it up gradually, i only commented as a few friends have got some tricky shoulder injuries from overswimming this year having upped their training too much without enough base work. they're understandably frustrated now! best of luck with your training.

doctorchick

promethius wrote: »

fair play to you, you've done it right, building it up gradually, i only commented as a few friends have got some tricky shoulder injuries from overswimming this year having upped their training too much without enough base work. they're understandably frustrated now! best of luck with your training.

Many thanks. Always happy to receive advice.

Fidge13

....and there was me thinking the 38 lengths i swam this morning had me in contention for a seat on the plane to london next summer!

Fair play to ye swimming that length of time. Tell me, do you find at all boring after a while? And how do you keep count of what distance you're covering/lengths you're swimming?

My aim is to gradually build up my lengths over six weeks to finally swim a mile without stopping from a schedule i discovered on the web.

okane1

I believe these sessions are 2 long. Why?
I come from a swimming competitive background, many national medals and have also swam for Ireland twice in the Celtic Nations.

Now I have turned my pool racing into open water racing. This year I competed in 1No. 2Km, 1No. 4km, 4No. 5km swim and 1No. 8km.
My pool training sessions never exceed 90mins. I either train short distance at pace, or long slow sessions but always with a goal. Hitting my timed distances. To date in all my years training, I have never swam a session greater than 2hrs, including many intensive overseas training camps.

If you are training for triathlons, you be swimming 1.5km. You need to train for this. 400m warm-up, 5 x 200m, 5x50m and 400m warm down. A simple session that’s very worthwhile.

You come from a running background. If you were training for a 5km race, say it takes 18mins, you not going to be doing 2 to 3hrs training sessions?
Why, no need to. Train for the event, same applies for all sports. You’re over training and it can lead to injury.

kingQuez

doctorchick wrote: »

All,

I have recently started to include a lot of swimming in my weekly workouts - am thinking of maybe giving triathlon a go for 2012. Almost all the swimming is done in the pool. I try to mix up my sessions, with speed sessions as well as long sessions. I do try and do one long session per week. It is not always about distance, but more endurance sessions, and can spend 2/3 hours at a time in the pool. Is there any general advice about showering during that time just to wash off the chlorine etc from the skin, or is the 2/3 hours too short to have to worry about any potential ill effects of being in the chlorine soup ?

DC

As others have said, 2-3hrs is a long swim set but they can be enjoyable and fun. You'll certainly have no problem with a triathlon! If the pool is using chlorine (and not ozone or uv or some other treatment technique) and you swim there regularly, I'd suggest you find out a bit about the quantity they're using and what sort of quality control they have on it. 3hrs in a chlorinated pool is a long time. You mention that you know Seb, so it's worth asking him about this; he has some articles on runireland about chlorine poisoning and is well placed to give you some practical advice.

doctorchick

okane1 wrote: »

I believe these sessions are 2 long. Why?
I come from a swimming competitive background, many national medals and have also swam for Ireland twice in the Celtic Nations.

Now I have turned my pool racing into open water racing. This year I competed in 1No. 2Km, 1No. 4km, 4No. 5km swim and 1No. 8km.
My pool training sessions never exceed 90mins. I either train short distance at pace, or long slow sessions but always with a goal. Hitting my timed distances. To date in all my years training, I have never swam a session greater than 2hrs, including many intensive overseas training camps.

If you are training for triathlons, you be swimming 1.5km. You need to train for this. 400m warm-up, 5 x 200m, 5x50m and 400m warm down. A simple session that’s very worthwhile.

You come from a running background. If you were training for a 5km race, say it takes 18mins, you not going to be doing 2 to 3hrs training sessions?
Why, no need to. Train for the event, same applies for all sports. You’re over training and it can lead to injury.

Valuable advice, many thanks. I like the session you describe. Would you vary much in intensity between the 5x200m and the 5x50m. Just looking at this I could see this being a warm-up, increased pace (5x200) and then a balls to the wall sprint (5x50) followed by a 400 down, am I reading this right ?
Again, many thanks and as I said in my first post, I could well be approaching this all wrong and only too glad to receive advice.

doctorchick

kingQuez wrote: »

As others have said, 2-3hrs is a long swim set but they can be enjoyable and fun. You'll certainly have no problem with a triathlon! If the pool is using chlorine (and not ozone or uv or some other treatment technique) and you swim there regularly, I'd suggest you find out a bit about the quantity they're using and what sort of quality control they have on it. 3hrs in a chlorinated pool is a long time. You mention that you know Seb, so it's worth asking him about this; he has some articles on runireland about chlorine poisoning and is well placed to give you some practical advice.

It was pretty much after talking with Seb a couple of months ago about him getting the chlorine poisoning that brought the question to mind. The pool is chlorinated and from a regular user point of view the levels of chlorine do seem to vary, and so I will indeed ask for the technical info.

doctorchick

Fidge13 wrote: »

....Tell me, do you find at all boring after a while? And how do you keep count of what distance you're covering/lengths you're swimming?

Strange as it may seem I don't get bored at all on long swims, don't know why, just don't. If I go for a long run I get completely bored if I am on my own to the point where I have cut runs short because of it. As for keeping count, I try and do it as much in my head as possible. I do swim at a very even pace and wear a stopwatch so I do a double check on the time to make sure it tallies with my head count.

Fair play back at you, I remember first time I swam a mile, was a very special feeling, so all the best in achieving your goal.

okane1

doctorchick wrote: »

Valuable advice, many thanks. I like the session you describe. Would you vary much in intensity between the 5x200m and the 5x50m. Just looking at this I could see this being a warm-up, increased pace (5x200) and then a balls to the wall sprint (5x50) followed by a 400 down, am I reading this right ?
Again, many thanks and as I said in my first post, I could well be approaching this all wrong and only too glad to receive advice.

For me the 50m swims would be close to max speed.
The 200m, go at a pace that you can hold through the entire set.

I've been using these sessions for a few months and find it a good structure. You input your times in the first page and then it commutes your times on each of the training sets. I didn't compile this document. You can also mix and match the sessions.

2old4dacold

okane1 wrote: »

I've been using these sessions for a few months and find it a good structure. You input your times in the first page and then it commutes your times on each of the training sets. I didn't compile this document. You can also mix and match the sessions.

this is pure gold . . . . any chance you'd expand on this (or even give it a topic of it's own)

when starting to use this -
is it intended that you go through the three pages, page by page and back to the start
or
pick a page/distance and repeat when the 10 workouts are complete

the table on the first page which gives guide times for effort levels will be a big help to anyone following a heart rate based plan i would imagine

okane1

2old4dacold wrote: »

this is pure gold . . . . any chance you'd expand on this (or even give it a topic of it's own)

when starting to use this -
is it intended that you go through the three pages, page by page and back to the start
or
pick a page/distance and repeat when the 10 workouts are complete

the table on the first page which gives guide times for effort levels will be a big help to anyone following a heart rate based plan i would imagine

For me, I normally go through each session in the third page and if I'm not feeling up to it, do the sessions in the second page.
Suppose it depends on your ability as to where to start. If you’re a good swimmer, probably can skip the first page. If starting out, start on the first, if finding it difficult, stick with it until you are able to complete and then move onto the second page and repeat. No point aiming for a 3.5km session if you can barely do a 2km session.
Slowly build it up, it isn’t a race!!

For me the issue I have with these sessions is they are all focused on front crawl. You need to mix it up slightly. I would split the warm up/down into 50% front and 50% back crawl. Also do the odd 50m back crawl between sets.

2old4dacold

200m time (C7) and 1500m time (C11) do not adjust automatically . . . .

does anyone with more computer savvy than me know how to get this working properly

okane1

2old4dacold wrote: »

200m time (C7) and 1500m time (C11) do not adjust automatically . . . .

does anyone with more computer savvy than me know how to get this working properly

try this one

2old4dacold

i feel i'm dragging things a bit off topic here, but anyway . . . .
where times are given for reps ie 100m - 2.00mins(no major effort/should be comfortable)

does this suggest taking 2mins to complete 100m or does it mean 100m on 2min starts?

okane1

2old4dacold wrote: »

i feel i'm dragging things a bit off topic here, but anyway . . . .
where times are given for reps ie 100m - 2.00mins(no major effort/should be comfortable)

does this suggest taking 2mins to complete 100m or does it mean 100m on 2min starts?

Yep, the time given in the reps is the time you should be finishing the swim. Pick a suitable rest period between reps, 15-30secs.
If you get your "best times" accurate on page 1, the reps shouldnt be too "easy" :rolleyes: