26km endurance swim planned for August

As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to participate in  a long distance swimming event this year.  That event has now arrived in the form of the Int. Self-Transcendence Marathon Swim, from Rapperswil to Zurich, organised by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team.  The event takes place on Sunday 4th August this year, and I am now signed up for it.

Never wanted to do things by half, I initially entered the non-wetsuit category.  However, after a few words from my other half I have decided to tone things down and enter the wetsuit category.  The swim is 26.4k in length, and as I could be in the water for up to 12 hours, I may as well maximise my chances of completing it by wearing a wetsuit if the water temperature is low.

As my regular readers will know, I am fairly new to swimming.  Yes I swam as kid, but that was too long ago to remember.  However, I am now comfortably able to swim 3k in one go in the pool (using a mixture of breaststroke and front crawl) with no significant aches the next day, and am currently swimming 10k per week (well since last week at least).

With 4 months to go till the event itself, my plan is to add 1k per week to my training.  That will have me swimming 26k per week shortly before the event itself.  The general consensus and advise on offer on the internet suggests that if necessary you can swim as far in one day as you train regularly in one week.  I will also have to attempt some longer open water swims once the lake warms up a bit.  My longest open water swim before the event itself will probably be around 15k.

I have no idea if I can get myself in the kind of shape I need to be in before the 4th August without suffering any injuries, but I am optimistic based on what I have seen so far.  I have been going for several runs per week, and I have noticed I feel the runs a lot more the next day than I do my swims.  I reckon that my body can tolerate quite a lot of swimming, with swimming being very low impact.  The kind of overuse injuries I will have to watch out for are mainly centred around the shoulders.

Whilst upping my weekly training distances, I will also continue to take 2 lessons per week in an effort to improve my technique in both front crawl and breaststroke.  The more efficient I can be in the water, the more I will enjoy the event itself.

If anyone reading this is living in the Zurich area and fancies going out for an open water swim in the lake with me, let me know.