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The Bastion Swim: Developing endurance
Developing your endurance
Follow a plan. To really conquer the Bastion swim you need to be as efficient in the water as possible and you also need to be swim fit. You will not reach your potential by “just swimming the distance” every time you go to the pool. A good training plan will increase your volume steadily over the course of 4 months until you are swimming sessions of 4000m quite comfortably. You should be including above race pace intervals at the right time and in the right way to and be stretching yourself to really be ready to swim your best on the day.
See below an example session from our Bastion 4 month program – this could be your first session.
Example Week 1: Base 1 Drills and 100’s Base Building
Warm Up: :200 easy swimming
Drills (100 m as 1 length drill, 1 length swim, 1 length drill, 1 length swim)2 x (100m Kicking on Side with Fins, 100m Superman, 100m Catch Up)Main Set: Swum at steady aerobic pace5 x 100m, 20 seconds rest
10 x 50m, 20 seconds rest
Cool Down: 200m easy any stroke
Total 2000m
Build on this session week on week, first by increasing the number of 100m repeats, then make these 200m repeats, then 300m repeats and so on until you are swimming repeats of 500m and a full set of 4000m. For novice athletes this should be you goal over the next 12 weeks. Advanced triathletes will be swimming longer.
Join a group. There is nothing more motivating than swimming with a group. Most swimming clubs have Masters sessions or join your local triathlon club swims. Keeping up with, and overtaking your peers is a great way to keep focused and stimulated.
