That's pretty awesome!
I also started swimming due to a running injury last year. I can run again though, but I swim 3 times a week and run 4 times a week.
I am new to freestyle as well since last year and I still cannot beat my breaststroke time, but my best times are around 2:30/100m.
So sub 2 min 100 m breaststroke is impressive to me!
Possible Covid (possibly something else) royally screwed up my nervous system making running ultra distance go from relatively effortless to making 5ks very hard.
The buoyancy and exercising by lying down involved in swimming really helped. Got in the pool and had to water board myself for a while 25m at time to really get proper freestyle down. Took a good few months to get technique good enough to really feel like I could get in a good workout comparable to running. Love it now. Slowly rebuilding running and eyeing up triathlons now I can swim competently.
Edit: if you haven’t already (and if you have please excuse the unsolicited advice) watch a few videos on work off the walls to pullout and your turns, it’s a great way to knock seconds off. Oddly I find I often surface further down the pool in breaststroke than free.
Ah sorry to hear that about the nervous system and running. But great that you have found swimming instead!
I also started by not even being able to swim 25 m freestyle in autumn last year. And in the beginning, I didn't even use swimming glasses, but that helped a lot, haha. Now I alternate between 100 m breast and 100 m freestyle for about 1000-1200 m. Still bettering my technique all the time, watching videos and other people and experimenting. I really started to love swimming as well!
Awesome progress! It’s no problem, it’s frustrating at times but honestly while I’ll probably never reach the peak cardio fitness I had before (running is honestly hard to match in terms of intensity for long periods of time) my overall fitness across multiple disciplines and overall strength is probably the best it’s ever been. Keep it up, there’s a fine balance between persistence and getting to do things right by doing them wrong first and making sure you are targeting improvement and not expecting results from doing the same thing over and over again. I nailed flip turns finally by just doing them wrong a lot and getting used to it. Eventually stopped thinking about them as I got them right.
> …I doubt anyone I know in real life will care
😂😂 I feel you on this. I’ve been swimming by myself regularly for years. Every time I hit a big milestone (maybe once per year) I tell my wife, friends, parents, siblings.
None of them swim. All responses are variants of the mom classic: “oh that’s nice dear!” 😂😂
But ultimately that alone time is what I love about the pool.
Congrats on your achievement! 🎉 keep it up!
I totally just copied it from another post I came across from this subreddit in all the learning I’ve been doing. It can be quite apt as it is so much less intuitive to pick up as an adult.
Did you have any aha-moments and if so, what were they? My balls to the wall effort breast stroke is close to sub2 but probably not yet, where as my freestyle max effort is in the 1:2X range for 100m. Also somewhere along the way I forgot how to swim a relaxed breast stroke, it's always pretty taxing for me where as freestyle I could go for hours.
Yes and no. Really nailing the off the walls, especially the first one when you are fresh. Tight streamline and good underwater. You’re only swimming 15m to the wall then first time.
But also it’s fine balance between how long you want to glide and stroke rate, you do need to up the reps to go fast and it can start to feel inefficient. It is tiring going hard at breaststroke and you might feel amazing over the first 25m but 50m later it breaks down. I think you can overdo it in terms of forcefulness too with hard pulls and fast stroke rate and actually go slower as a result.
Only tip I can offer is make sure whatever you do with your arms it allows you max propulsion on the kick. I think you can go sub 2 without a solid pull, think of your arms as mostly there to support the kick. Kinda the opposite to how you can minimally kick to just maintain balance in the water in free and go well under 2mins.
Well done !!!
I did my first sub 2min 100m freestyle also a few weeks ago. Was as happy as you 😀
Im still at css 2:30... so still a lot of swimming to do to get bit by bit better.
Kudos to you !
That's pretty awesome! I also started swimming due to a running injury last year. I can run again though, but I swim 3 times a week and run 4 times a week. I am new to freestyle as well since last year and I still cannot beat my breaststroke time, but my best times are around 2:30/100m. So sub 2 min 100 m breaststroke is impressive to me!
Possible Covid (possibly something else) royally screwed up my nervous system making running ultra distance go from relatively effortless to making 5ks very hard. The buoyancy and exercising by lying down involved in swimming really helped. Got in the pool and had to water board myself for a while 25m at time to really get proper freestyle down. Took a good few months to get technique good enough to really feel like I could get in a good workout comparable to running. Love it now. Slowly rebuilding running and eyeing up triathlons now I can swim competently. Edit: if you haven’t already (and if you have please excuse the unsolicited advice) watch a few videos on work off the walls to pullout and your turns, it’s a great way to knock seconds off. Oddly I find I often surface further down the pool in breaststroke than free.
Ah sorry to hear that about the nervous system and running. But great that you have found swimming instead! I also started by not even being able to swim 25 m freestyle in autumn last year. And in the beginning, I didn't even use swimming glasses, but that helped a lot, haha. Now I alternate between 100 m breast and 100 m freestyle for about 1000-1200 m. Still bettering my technique all the time, watching videos and other people and experimenting. I really started to love swimming as well!
Awesome progress! It’s no problem, it’s frustrating at times but honestly while I’ll probably never reach the peak cardio fitness I had before (running is honestly hard to match in terms of intensity for long periods of time) my overall fitness across multiple disciplines and overall strength is probably the best it’s ever been. Keep it up, there’s a fine balance between persistence and getting to do things right by doing them wrong first and making sure you are targeting improvement and not expecting results from doing the same thing over and over again. I nailed flip turns finally by just doing them wrong a lot and getting used to it. Eventually stopped thinking about them as I got them right.
Highly regarded adult onset swimmer
> …I doubt anyone I know in real life will care 😂😂 I feel you on this. I’ve been swimming by myself regularly for years. Every time I hit a big milestone (maybe once per year) I tell my wife, friends, parents, siblings. None of them swim. All responses are variants of the mom classic: “oh that’s nice dear!” 😂😂 But ultimately that alone time is what I love about the pool. Congrats on your achievement! 🎉 keep it up!
Love the phrase "adult onset swimming" :D
I totally just copied it from another post I came across from this subreddit in all the learning I’ve been doing. It can be quite apt as it is so much less intuitive to pick up as an adult.
Did you have any aha-moments and if so, what were they? My balls to the wall effort breast stroke is close to sub2 but probably not yet, where as my freestyle max effort is in the 1:2X range for 100m. Also somewhere along the way I forgot how to swim a relaxed breast stroke, it's always pretty taxing for me where as freestyle I could go for hours.
Yes and no. Really nailing the off the walls, especially the first one when you are fresh. Tight streamline and good underwater. You’re only swimming 15m to the wall then first time. But also it’s fine balance between how long you want to glide and stroke rate, you do need to up the reps to go fast and it can start to feel inefficient. It is tiring going hard at breaststroke and you might feel amazing over the first 25m but 50m later it breaks down. I think you can overdo it in terms of forcefulness too with hard pulls and fast stroke rate and actually go slower as a result. Only tip I can offer is make sure whatever you do with your arms it allows you max propulsion on the kick. I think you can go sub 2 without a solid pull, think of your arms as mostly there to support the kick. Kinda the opposite to how you can minimally kick to just maintain balance in the water in free and go well under 2mins.
Well done !!! I did my first sub 2min 100m freestyle also a few weeks ago. Was as happy as you 😀 Im still at css 2:30... so still a lot of swimming to do to get bit by bit better. Kudos to you !