12-week plan · Free
Olympic Distance
Stop Doing Random Swim Workouts. You need structure.
This plan is for triathletes who can already swim, but have nothing structured to their training. The most common gap in self-coached swim programs isn't fitness or effort, it's structure.
What this plan focuses on
A real progression
24 workouts that build week over week toward the Olympic distance specifically, not the same set repeated with no plan behind it.
Purposeful intensity
Every session has a clear goal, descend, strong and steady, fast, or controlled cruise, so you always know exactly how hard to push and why.
Technique under structure
The same drills and skills work as every SwimFast plan, scaled to someone who already has a base and needs a real plan to build on it.
How the plan works
Two swims a week, 24 workouts over 12 weeks, each one building on the last. Here's what's inside every session.
Warm up
Easy swimming, some fast sprinting, and breathing work, designed to get you wet, loose, and comfortable before the real work starts.
Skills & drills
A specific drill each session, slowed right down, so you actually fix the thing it's meant to fix rather than rushing through it.
Main set
Where fitness gets built and technique gets tested under fatigue. Different intensities for different goals, some fast, some steady, always with a clear purpose.
Cool down
Your best technique, saved for last, since it's what your body remembers walking out of the pool.
Open water sessions
Two sessions in every plan built to get you comfortable with race conditions before race day, always with a buddy, always where lifeguards are on duty.
Progressive build
Every workout builds on the one before it. Week 12 is meaningfully harder than week 1, on purpose.
Sample workout
Warm up
Get comfortable in the water on the easy swim. Then get your heart rate and stroke rate up on the fast swims.
1 x 100 Easy 1 x 100 Alt 25 Sprint / 25 Easy
Skills & drills
Focused entirely on balance and alignment, a straight line from head to toe, floating as high as you can. Perfect technique matters more than speed here. Fins optional.
3 x 50 Alt 25 Balance Drill / 25 Freestyle 2 x 25 Side Kick Drill 1 x 50 Freestyle
Main set
This should feel like your jogging pace, comfortable and steady. Find a groove, keep a low heart rate. It shouldn't be particularly hard, it's a pace you could hold all day. Rest 15 seconds between each repeat.
10 x 150 Controlled Cruise
Cool down
1 x 50 Easy
Get the full 12-week plan
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