anyone do any distance swimming?

As most of you know utilizing a pool has literally and figuratively saved my life over the past few months. 2 weeks ago I was cleared to swim again without use of a kickboard. While my pace is far slower than it once was (I swam for NBAC until the age of 19 competing in free, fly and IM up to 400m). I'm enjoying the relaxing nature and escape of it opposed to seeing how fast I can click off 50m splits. Today I found myself swimming 1200m, 800 breast, 200 back and 200 free. I'm sure that I'll be up to 1600 before the end of next week (weather permitting). Does anyone on here do any distance swimming or open water swimming? Come summer I may start open water swimming in the susquehanna in preparation for the bay bridge swim.

In reply to captdownshift: I really glad you're active and doing well Captain. My swimming career was mostly pools back in the day but I'd like to suggest this little tidbit: for open water distance swimming you REALLY want to have a kayaker or similar shadow you. A few years ago my aunt (very accomplished marathoner turned endurance swimmer) was out on her daily swim and was run down by a pontoon boat. The prop nearly severed her arm just below the elbow. Boaters just aren't on the lookout for something low and slow-moving like a swimmer.

Good luck!

I did some open water distance races about a decade and a half ago. The rule then, just as now is get a decent wetsuit. A proper swimming wetsuit will make you more buoyant and a good deal faster.

Not much to be gained in training in open water in my opinion - train in the pool, that way on race day you've got the spotters as part of the race, so nothing to worry about with boats as Ky said.

My cube mate does and he's signed up for the bridge swim already. If you havent signed up yet, do it soon. Also they require other open swim time cerification. Probably so you don't die.

Are you joking? I once swam 1/2 mile one way across a bay to watch a water ski show, holding a beer above water on the way there. The trip back was tuff (luckily I can swim forever doing the side stroke). Like Dr Brown said in Back to the Future III, "In the future, people will run for fun." LOL

My girlfriend is a swim coach for adults that do open water swimming. if you have a questions I can probably get them answered. I'm of no help myself, I mostly just float. 

I was a world-class middle distance freestyler in the late 80s and early 90s--was as high as 5th in the US in the 400M free and was as high as 25th in the world.  Olympic trials finalist in 92.  I don't swim for fitness much any more as I don't like to train alone in the pool, and my work/life schedule makes committing to a Masters program extremely difficult.  Nowadays, I prefer pedaling a bike versus staring at a line below me. 

Back "in the day" doing two 10,000 meter workouts per day was not unheard of--and two 7-8000 meter workouts was the norm.  Add in about an hour of "dryland" training each day--weights, stretching, medicine ball etc.  We worked our asses off...

Two of my kids are distance freestylers. 15:30 and 16:10 respectively 1500 short course which is pretty dang fast. I cover 15 meters in about 30 strokes and they do it in 14. They swim over 30 hours a week. 

Off and on I will do a mile of freestyle laps.  I'm looking to start that again soon.  I'm not fast; 35 minutes is a common elapsed time for me.  If I'm feeling like it I'll flip turn but I don't think I'm any faster doing them and they leave me a bit out of breath. 

At one point I was doing four to five miles a week in the pool but I haven't kept that kind of schedule in a long time. 

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

Two of my kids are distance freestylers. 15:30 and 16:10 respectively 1500 short course which is pretty dang fast. I cover 15 meters in about 30 strokes and they do it in 14. They swim over 30 hours a week. 

Your kids are some kind of aqua-mutants. 

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

Two of my kids are distance freestylers. 15:30 and 16:10 respectively 1500 short course which is pretty dang fast. I cover 15 meters in about 30 strokes and they do it in 14. They swim over 30 hours a week. 

Your kids are some kind of aqua-mutants. 

They are. Not as fast as you though. The one has trials times but he is not fast enough to make the team. Yet anyway. He is only 20. The other is 18 and so far his times have been a little slower.

I started doing Masters swimming last July. I am super lucky that we have a ton of practice options available with my local team. Our typical Saturday practices are 5-5500 yards. 3-3500 on weekdays. If you have a local masters team, I would suggest looking into it as it has been very motivating to keep me in the water. I am curious to see how I do in the 500 next week. I'm sure I am much slower than I was I'm high school.

When I was in college, I lived in the St Petersburg area. I would swim about a mile in the gulf every day for most of the year. By early December, the water got too cold, but the cold fronts would bring rideable waves, so I would surf until the water warmed up again in the spring. 
 

I tried to keep up with the swimming after I transferred to UF, but I've never been a pool swimmer. Trying to cover any distance in a pool always felt like trying to jog in the living room. I switched to biking. 

I did a sprint Triathalon recently.  First time I've ever swam for distance.   Wow it's hard and wow I'm bad. 

Swim team from 8th grade thru Freshman year of college, water polo team in high school too, which was much more fun.  Wasn't on scholarship and got burned out from daily two a day 7000 meter work outs so I stopped.  Don't really get in the pool anymore, just had enough, much happier on my mtn bike.

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

Two of my kids are distance freestylers. 15:30 and 16:10 respectively 1500 short course which is pretty dang fast. I cover 15 meters in about 30 strokes and they do it in 14. They swim over 30 hours a week. 

Your kids are some kind of aqua-mutants. 

They are. Not as fast as you though. The one has trials times but he is not fast enough to make the team. Yet anyway. He is only 20. The other is 18 and so far his times have been a little slower.

There's ~1610 meters in a mile.  If they're covering 1500 meters in 15.5  or 16.2 minutes they're way faster than I am.  1500 meters / 15.5 minutes = about 100 meters a minute.  1610 meters / 30 minutes = about 55 meters a minute.  Unless I'm mistaken they're about 2x faster than I am.  Fastest I've ever done a miles is around 28 minutes.  I'm fine with this, generally, but I'm not fast.  I'm not really sure why I'm not faster, as I have the reach, but I probably lack the upper body strength to really put my long arms to good use.  Swimming is such a 'whole system' workout that it's probably not just this though.

I started lake swimming last year as a way to get a good workout in without overheating (I work on my feet in the heat for my job).  I got up to a mile distance over the summer.  I was surprised at how good of a total body workout it is, as well as how terrifying open water swimming can be.  It only takes one wave to totally bugger you up.  I did better with an absurdly large float/spotting bouy tied to my ankle, which gave me peace of mind in an emergency scenario as well as added visibility on a public water body.