How viable would if be to get fast-ish/proficient at swimming 2km in open water in 15 weeks, from “doesn’t swim regularly but is OK swimmer”?

All while maintaining cycling and running fitness.

15 weeks is loads.

Swimming is all technique!

Join a club, get a coach, read a book. With good technique your easily be able to swim 2K well enough.

There was a good thread a month or so back on this topic

distance swimming is about technique and efficiency. Get a coach to look at your stroke and work on it, if you google swimming technique there is a good page by manchester tri club with tips, drills and videos to demonstrate. We ahave ahad a coach a coupleof times recently at the tri cluba nd stroke my stroke count has dropped from 18 to 13 a lenght, thats a lot less strokes over 1500 or 2k’s.

I guess after that it will be a time issue. for me if i swim once a week i just about maintain fitness, 2 is better, 3 and i notice the gains. Also is there a masters or swim club session in your local pool, its better than just banging out length after length. Then about easter time it should be wram enough to get outside, but thats dependant on location, i’m luck enough to be able to use crummock water for training.

Ta *thinks about borrowing wetsuit*

Half iron man?

how long does it take you at the moment?

and how fast do you want to get?

Idea is:

Running a marathon on May, will be focussing on that till then, afterwards I could train in the pool (prob the priority) and also build-up cycling fitness in order to get the benefit of being running/cycling-fit and trying a decent tri (Big Ben tri in Sept)

I live by the sea and a pool so training and open water miles easy!

No idea how slow I am in the pool but I’m comfortable front crawl etc – have had the occasional spate of lengths in the past.

Thing is training =/= fun so I’d want some of my biking/running to be fun, and I also like to party, 😎

Glad to see these replies, 15 weeks will be fine. Concentrate on good technique, and keep in mind that fast swimming is always a compromise between force production and streamlining. So maximum beasting it won’t help, and neither will an overly streamlined, low stroke count, style of swimming. Everything needs to be optimum, and that’s what good technique is.
Me, Level 3 qualified leading coach of kickass team.

^ interesting didgerman, what % efficient are world class swimmers?

I read somewhere, but can’t find it that Poppov, (Russian who was knifed), was something like 9% efficient, meaning that 91% of his energy was spent on not drowning whilst only 9% was spent on actually moving forwards.

This this about right?

karnali – 13 strokes / length! Are you an international sprinter?

I’ve got a pretty lazy stroke – 17 / length for a 6 minute-ish 400m. From some web-site or other: “As a point of reference, world class distance swimmers will take between 10-15 strokes a lap during their freestyle races, and between 8-12 during moderately hard workout swims”

I think in 15 weeks you won’t have a problem completing the distance at the end of it.

My 10 year old daughter has just swam 2500 meters in 1 hour, if you want to set yourself a goal and not be beaten by a junior : 😀