Less is best for Winter Swimming.

After spending 25 years in the frozen tundra (or New Hampshire as some people call it) I moved to Southern California during the winter of 2009.

People back east seem to always refer to winters as the year they happen in "yeah I remba the winter of 2005, the snow was wicked" but you never hear people in SoCal talk about the winters that way. No out here the refer to highways in a  similar manner "the 405 was jammed this morning, dude" I guess when something has a major bearing on your lifestyle you always put "the" before it.

Anyways as I was saying.. Since there are more UFO sightings than pools in New Hampshire and all the lakes have 8 feet of ice on them, I never really swam much in the winter. So when I arrived here and moved within a 1/2 mile of a 50 meter outdoor pool I thought "boy now that I can swim all winter my times going to drop now!" With that in mind I sent up a schedule of a 100 swims in a 100 days during my off season at the end of 2009. Now I fell a little short of my goal, only made 97 swims in 100 days, but its my results and the conclusion I (and others) have drawn from my little experiment.

The steely look of determination  "I will swim faster!" but at what cost?

My races the following season met with mixed results. My swim times were indeed better but my overall times were the same if not a tad slower! Swimming has always been the slowest part of any tri I do, being a decent cyclist and runner, I have always made up time in these two areas to finish well. But in my swimming giddiness I lost sight of the theory of maximizing my strengths while minimizing my weakness. In other words I spent so much time swimming my strengths had lost some of there, well, strength. I hadn't spent enough time building my aerobic base, not enough time in the saddle. My conclusion was less swimming in the off season, more running and biking base, is the way to go.

Now unbeknownst to me an excellent triathlon coach here in California, Rich Strauss of Endurance Nation, had fully developed the principle of a Swimming Vacation as early as 2007.  He theorizes, among other things, that since swimming is the shortest of the three disciplines that time gains there will not match gains made in the other two disciplines, therefore one should minimize swimming and maximize time on the run and the bike during the offseason. Now he has spent a great deal of time and effort developing his swim vacation theory. You can read more about here:

http://www.endurancenation.us/blog/training/triathlon-coaching-psa-132-no-winter-swimming/

Following my big winter of swimming I concur whole heartedly in what Rich is saying. Get your rest, spend you time building your aerobic base, and as you get closer to the season get back into the pool. How much faster a swimmer are you really going to become? But even small improvements in miles per minute on your bike or run, multiplied over the time you spend doing each of those in a race, can provide better overall results.

Has anyone tried either a swim vacation, or a swim training overload? What type of results have you seen?