Reply To: Orientation and Triathlon 101 Follow-Up Questions

#9483
David Eng
Participant

Regarding rowing, there is no substitute for actually swimming.  Swimming is about 80% technique and  20% strength.  Even if you develop strength in other ways, you’re still missing 80% of the technique.

If you’re a good swimmer already (i.e., swam in high school or college competitively), you can definitely get away with swimming only 1x/week or even 1x/month.  I did a 1.2 mile swim in my half ironman last year having gone to the pool only twice in six months before race day, but I’ve also been swimming for a couple years and I can get away with that.  If you’re not a good swimmer, it is not ideal to miss the 2 swim workouts per week and will put you in trouble of missing the swim cut-off and being disqualified for the rest of the race on race day.

Regarding Pilates, I don’t know much about it and someone else will have a better answer.