swimming endurance..how?

The best way to improve swimming endurance is the same way we improve at biking or running ... by stretching our limits a little a time and allowing for recovery. After a warmup, try this: swim 50 yards, rest 20 seconds, do it again. Do this 10 times for 500 yards, then repeat twice more, taking a minute or two to recover between the 500s. You should be able to do each 50 in a minute or less, based on your post. That's fine. What you don't want to do is swim the last set of 50s slower than the first. Find a pace you can stick with. Finish with 2 x 100s on 30 second recoveries. Do a cooldown. All of these sets might feel very hard. You might be breathing hard. Keep pushing. Your body will remember this workout and will adapt to an even tougher workout next time. Gradually, if you're consistent, instead of 50s you'll be doing this workout with 100s and with less recovery time. And before people get all worked up over drills, form and technique being more important etc., I'm going to assume you're OK in that area. I'm talking strictly about endurance improvement, which is what you asked about. Good luck.

Hey Mac,

I used to always alternate free/back/free/breast.  I pushed harder on the free laps and rested on the back and breast.  Now I have figured out how to slow the free down and can go free for a solid hour if I want to.  I am not sure which way is a better workout.  I am nowhere near as fast as you.  I average about 2:10 per 100 yards.

Swimming a long way is all about efficiency so I think the conventional wisdom among the good swimmers around here is that you should not practice inefficient form.  So if your stroke count per lap increases, you should take a breather or swim a lap of breast stroke.  

If your stroke needs some work (at 1:43/100 you are pretty good already) there are lots of drills to help with body position to reduce drag, to make breathing easier, or to get more distance out of each stroke.  The best thing for stroke work is to get a coach.  Most swimming competitions are sprint events so most coaches emphasize a sprinter's stroke.  You may need to shop around for someone who knows that you are looking for efficiency rather than raw speed.

Your problem is more likely just the physical adaptations for endurance in the upper body are not there yet.  Most of us, even former swimmers,  have never done endurance swimming.  Your muscles have to adapt to work continuously rather than perform an anaerobic work/rest cycle. 

Good luck.  As someone who formerly just ran, I am so glad that now when I see the temperature up in the 80's I can decide to go swim for an hour instead.

TW 

Thanks for the advice so far...another question I have..which is kind of stupid but...when people are talking about stroke count, are you counting from a standing start at the wall or do you incorporate your kick turns.  Obviously the stroke count will be less if the kick turns are included...and I assume that everyone is doing a kick turn  and that is how they averaging 1:30 to 1:40 100's consistently.   My 100 today in 1:43 was not an all out sprint for me but close...when I do the 50 free/50 breast alternating...I am about 1:10 for the 50 frees and 1:35 for the breast...

oops, blank...please see below.

Unless the swims in your races are in a pool, and you will be able to do flip turns during the race, to me, it seems silly to record your times including flip turns.  In open water there are no walls to push off to get that extra "uummph."  Seems that by practicing flip turns one would be falsly teaching your body that you will get an explosion of propulsion every 25 or 50 yards.

Just my $.02. 

Mac,

For comparison purposes, the conventional stroke count is push off the wall, right arm 1, left arm 2, right arm 3, repeat until you touch the far wall.   If you do a flip turn as opposed to a wall turn where you actually grab the wall with your hand, you save about a stroke.  

The good swimmers do flip turns to show off although some claim that not getting a big breath at the wall simulates open water better and thats why they do it.   I do flip turns until I get tired then switch to wall turns or until I miss the wall with my feet whichever comes first.

TW 

Scott - SLOW DOWN!  I fought the same thing all of last year, and I finally 'got it' this year.  Funny thing: once I mentally slowed down, my times started getting faster.  Last night I did 15 repeats of 100yd freestyle - my first 3 repeats were on the 2:00 mark, where the final ones were closer to 1:50 (there were one or two 1:45s in there too.)

Macao,

I thiink it's your avatar that's slowing you down!

Seriously, echo - slow down brother. What good is it to swim a 1:43 100 when you have to swim 1500 in the race? Better to swim a 1:50 1500 consistently.  Stroke count is good. At the beginning it's almost better to count your strokes than your time because your stroke count will tell you how elongated your stroke is and see how good your form is.

Best way to get used to swimming fast consistently is to do intervals. Basically swim 50s or 100 with rest in between for long sets. You should do one long swim a week, but the rest of the week should be drills and intervals. Depending on your race length your interval length will be long or short. If you're doing a sprint then intervals will be of 100s, 200s, or 300s until your total sprint length is done. Olys maybe 400s, 500s, 600s, 1/2 IM 600s, 750s, and long sets added to the early drills of 1000s, 1500s, etc.

Concentrate on form and intervals and you will get faster.