12-week plan · Free
Sprint Distance
Start where you are, and build from there.
An excellent introduction to racing, built to give you real racing experience while improving your confidence and your open water skills. For a lot of triathletes, this is the natural stepping stone into longer races later on.
What this plan focuses on
A logical progression
24 workouts that build from where you are now toward your race distance, not a random jump straight to race-pace swimming.
Open water confidence
Two open water sessions built into the plan, so race morning isn't the first time you've swum in open water under real conditions.
Real technique, from day one
The same structured skills and drills as every SwimFast plan, scaled to someone building toward their first sprint distance race.
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 Freestyle 1 x 100 Alt 25 Fast / 25 Easy Freestyle
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.
2 x 50 Alt 25 Balance Drill / 25 Freestyle 4 x 25 Side Kick Drill 2 x 50 Freestyle
Main set
Swim fast today. You should find it difficult to hold this intensity, and your muscles should burn. This isn't your race pace, the point is getting used to being out of breath, because you'll feel that at the start of your race too. Rest 60 seconds between each repeat.
6 x 50 Fast
Cool down
1 x 50 Easy
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