Why you should swim different distances when training for open water swimming events

We’re talking distance sessions as part of your event training, This is about either increasing the incremental distances or just completing your overall event distance.

So why have different distances? 

Despite it sounding logical, you don’t always have to just aim to go for 100 metres then 200 and 300, 400, 500 and so on! That can of course be a little bit boring, and in turn affect your motivation for continuing on with your training. 

So to keep things interesting – Week one: you might think about doing 200 but split into two 100 metre swims. The next week you might feel ready to take on the 200 straight, and week 3 might be breaking up a 300 or if you are feeling good going straight to that distance.

The idea is to gain confidence over the training plan so you know you can cover the event distance. Even if that means breaking it up a little to start with. For the example above if you feel you need to break it up then just try to take as little rest in between as possible.

Once you’ve got it? Try and replicate the same thing again that you did already. You don’t have to do it all from cool, take confidence that the distance is the distance and you’ve covered it (even if you did break it down a little). 

The aim for many event swimmers is continuous swimming, the most efficient way to do that is by swimming frontcrawl but not everyone can swim distances doing that and might need to change strokes here and there. So whether that distance you are targeting is broken into frontcrawl, some of it breaststroke, and then back to frontcrawl again, that’s fine. Of course we all aim to be at our best pace in frontcrawl during an event and so when doing the stroke consistently for the whole time the key is to make sure that your technique is good.

If you haven’t had a coaching session before, we’d encourage all of our event swimmers to really think about having a session or two with a coach in your area (Not sure where to find one? Check out our Coach Finder Tool) because that’s really going to help you to make sure that your frontcrawl is efficient and not hindering you in any shape or form. 

At the start of a training plan for a mile swim, 1600m can feel like an impossible task? Keep your mind focussed on taking bitesize chunks out of that distance. If by week eight you’ve done 800m with minimal stopping, that’s something to be proud of! We’d love to hear more about your journey on our social media.  

The reason a tailored training is so helpful is because we recognise that if you try to swim the full distance right from the start, tiredness will set in and your confidence might take a hit. By adding the extra distance incrementally your body has time to get use to swimming continuously. We also know that life gets in the way and one week you may have smashed a session getting to 1000 metres straight and yet next time you struggle getting to 800 metres and you just have to stop. You need to have a rest. That’s OK. Make sure to stay well hydrated, keep your nutrition on track and get a good night’s sleep before taking on a swim. 

If you’re off track for a session or 2, it’s not the end of the world. Just be sure to keep realistic goals in your sights and if you feel you are beginning to struggle more than you succeed then maybe it’s time to reassess the distance. We can’t recommend seeking out a coach highly enough and this is where a coach can really help, it might just be a technique issue that’s holding you back from completing the distance.

For us our number one tip is to make sure that you’re being as consistently efficient with your technique and your training plan can be, because that’s how you’re going to make sure you can swim the full race distance or event distance that you’re doing. Technique always comes at the top of the list.
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