Triathlon Training for Champions I

The Brownlees co-author a book: Swim Bike Run: Our Triathlon Story.

“Swimming for triathlon is very different from swimming in a pool.’’

‘’In races you shouldn’t be trying to go as fast as you can. That will sound strange, but it’s about conserving as much energy as possible while not losing out. That’s why we spend one of our main swimming sessions doing endless lots of 100 meters at 1 minute 10 seconds pace. The aimed is to be able to swim at about those speeds in a race, but as easy as possible, with a little exertion as you can. And you adjust your stroke around that. You make a small tweak and then watch the clock as you swim to see what difference it makes. How easily you can swim 1500 meters at the pace of 1 minute 10 seconds per 100 meters? That’s the key question for pro, because you’ll never have to swim much faster than that in a race.’’

They do short pacing “improving technique” to be able to swim easily at that speed.  For the majority of mortals swimming at 1:10 endless reps of 100 meters is pretty much an anaerobic workout.  Guennadi Touretski told me that Popov used to do 400 meters reps in 4:35 to develop endurance with 30 strokes for 50 meters.  I saw Touretski´s practice, females doing 40 reps of 50 meters at a pace of 34 seconds x 50 meters to develop endurance instead of slow pace for longer intervals.

The most important training the Brownlees do is at race pace or faster.  The Russians do not use language to deceive us.  They just mention adaptation versus more work to get adaptation.  They do not speak of about molecules, enzymes or other similar things.  Touretski said to me: “This is very powerful practice to be ready to compete.”