12 Week Sprint Distance

Hey there!

“Start Where You Are And Build From There”

The Sprint Distance is an excellent introduction to racing, giving you valuable racing experience while improving confidence and open water (OW) racing skills. It’s often a nice stepping stone to longer races by many triathletes, for various reasons.

If you can swim 200m without stopping and are aiming at your first Sprint Triathlon Race, this plan has been written for you.

It comprises 24 workouts designed to progressively enhance your endurance and confidence, specifically targeting the Sprint Race Distance. It’s filled with a variety of workouts that’ll help build your skills and stamina.

The progression and thought behind this program has been compiled from years of experience as a competitive swimmer and as a coach working with swimmers and triathletes of all ages. It includes very structured skills, drills, sets and explanations designed to help you improve your technique, build your fitness and grow your confidence in your swimming ability

While I do not suggest that a simple plan like this can replace the value of working one on one with a coach, the twelve-week program will help you improve your swimming ability by leading you through a logical and easy to follow progression of drills and swim distances.

Once you have finished working your way through this program you will:

1. Better understand the fundamentals of swimming and moving through the water
2. Know how to work with the water, not against it
3. Develop the strength and power to the point where you can relax letting your body do the work. Never fight the water again!

This program assumes you know how to swim basic freestyle (front crawl) and can swim a continuous 200 in the pool without stopping.

~ Rory

My name is Rory. I’m a swimming for triathlon coach and I help triathletes conquer the swim.

I’m a retired, internationally ranked, swimmer and as a coach I’ve spent over 20 years identifying the most effective ways of moving through the water. I’ve helped triathletes finish their first race and I have coached Ironmen who have completed at World Champs. Let’s dive into your plan!

The Plan Details:

Plan Design:

This plan gives you two swims to do over 12 weeks, a total of 24 workouts. Each workout builds on the on before and gets progressively more challenging as the weeks goes on.

Workout Structure:

Warm Up

Your warm ups are designed to get you wet, loose and comfortable in the water. They should warm up your muscles and elevate your heart rate a little bit before you get into the meat of the workout.

In our program the warm ups consist of easy swimming, some fast sprinting and some breathing work.

Skill & Drills

Swimming can be complicated. There are a lot of moving parts… Your breathing is limited. There are so many things to think about when you envision that “perfect stroke”. It can be really overwhelming to try to get everything right all the time.

This is why we do drills.

Each session you will be given a drill that will help you with your stroke. Slow everything down and do the drill right. The videos and instructions on how to do each drill can be found at the end of this document.

These are the drills you will find spread throughout your plan. Click on each one to play the video and read the instructions on how to execute the drill correctly.
➜ Balance Drill
➜ Side Kick
➜ Side Kick Switch 12-12
➜ Fists Freestyle
➜ Alligator Eyes
➜ Sighting Freestyle

Main Set

Think of the Skills and Drills set as the architectural piece of your workout. It’s the piece where we craft and design your stroke to be efficient and fast.

The main set is the building and testing piece.

The main sets of each workout will focus on building your swimming fitness and teaching you to maintain good form when fatigued.

There are a few different speeds and intensities you will need to understand to really execute the main sets correctly, here they are:

Descend Swims

Descend sets asks you to swim increasingly faster with each completed repeat. Start each set easy and get faster as the set goes on.

Strong & Steady Swims

These are key workouts to help you swim strong on race day. During these swims, you should be breathing heavily but you should stay in control of your breathing. Let’s call it “comfortably uncomfortable” . It may feel comfortable to start but as the it progresses, you will start to feel more and more uncomfortable.

FAST Swims

Fast swimming is FAST swimming. You should find it difficult to maintain the intensity through these swims. Your goal is to feel out of breath! While this isn’t the pace you are going to swim at on race morning, you want to experience being out of breath because it’s likely to happen at the start of the race.

Controlled Cruise Swims

These swims should feel similar to your jogging pace. You should feel comfortable and steady. You should be able to find a groove and keep a low heart rate. It shouldn’t be particularly challenging – it’s a pace you could swim at all day.

Cool Down

We’ll finish each session with a warm down.

You should emphasize great technique during your warm down. The stroke you use here is what your body will remember doing last when you leave the pool. The better your stroke ends today, the better it will start next session!

Open Water Workouts

Open water swimming can be nerve racking if you don’t know what to expect so you should give yourself the chance to experience similar conditions to those you will be racing in, this means swimming in open water before race day. There are two open water workouts in this program, do not swim these alone – always have a buddy and swim on a beach where there are lifeguards on duty.

SAMPLE WORKOUT

Pacing:

Warm Up

➜ Get comfortable in the water on the easy swim to start off today
1 x 100 Easy Freestyle

Skills & Drills

➜ This drill set is intended to help you work on balance and alignment. You should be
entirely focused on being:

• In a straight line – head to toe
• Floating as high as you can in the water

➜ The focus here is on perfect technique – not how fast you can finish.
➜ Fins are recommended for these Drills
⏱ Rest as needed between each repeat

6 x 25 Balance Drill
1 x 50 Freestyle

Main Set

➜ This “Descend” set asks you to swim increasingly faster with each completed repeat
I want to you to make each 50 faster than the one before.

• Goal: Build through 3 different speeds & intensities
• Set Intensity: 5-8
  ⏱ Rest 20 Seconds between all repeats

6 x 50 Descend 1-3 and 4-6

➜ Descend 1-3 and 4-6 means:
– Number 1 & 4 will be easy
– Number 2 & 5 will be medium
– Number 3 & 6 will be strong

Cool Down

2 x 25 Easy

SAMPLE WORKOUT

Speed

Warm Up

➜ Get comfortable in the water on the easy swim to start off today. Then get your heart rate and stroke rate up on the fast swims.
Rest 20 Seconds between 100’s

1 x 100 Easy Freestyle
1 x 100 Alt 25 FAST/25 Easy Freestyle

Skills & Drills

➜ This drill set is intended to help you work on balance and alignment. You should be entirely focused on being:

• In a straight line – head to toe
• Floating as high as you can in the water

➜ The focus here is on perfect technique – not how fast you can finish.
➜ Fins are Optional for these Drills
⏱ Rest as needed between each repeat

2 x 50 as Balance Drill / 25 Freestyle
4 x 25 Side Kick Drill
2 x 50 Freestyle

Main Set

➜ I want you to swim fast today! You should find it difficult to maintain the intensity through this set. You’ll feel out of breath and your muscles will burn! While this isn’t the pace you are going to swim at on race morning, you want to experience being out of breath because it’s likely to happen at the start of the race.

• Goal: FAST
• Set Intensity: 10/10

⏱ Rest 60 Seconds between 50’s

6 x 50 FAST

Cool Down

1 x 50 Easy

SAMPLE WORKOUT

Muscular Endurance

Warm Up

➜ Get comfortable in the water on the easy swim to start off today. Then get your heart rate and stroke rate up on the fast swims
⏱ Rest 20 Seconds between 50’s

1 x 100 Easy
1 x 100 Alt 25 Sprint/25 Easy

Skills & Drills

➜ This drill set is intended to help you work on balance and alignment. You should be entirely focused on being:

• In a straight line – head to toe
• Floating as high as you can in the water

➜ The focus here is on perfect technique – not how fast you can finish.
➜ Fins are Optional for these Drills
⏱ Rest as needed between each repeat

3 x 50 as Balance Drill / 25 Freestyle
2 x 25 Side Kick Drill
1 x 50 Freestyle

Main Set

➜ The intensity in this set should feel similar to your jogging pace. I want you to feel comfortable and steady. You should be able to find a groove and keep a low heart rate. It shouldn’t be particularly challenging – it’s a pace you could swim at all day.

• Goal: steady sustainable pace
• Set Intensity: 5/10

⏱  Rest 10 Seconds between 50’s
⏱  Rest 15 Seconds between 100’s

8 x 50 Controlled Cruise
4 x 100 Controlled Cruise

Cool Down

1 x 50 Easy