Swim endurance -Swim to increase speed

Not sure where you are swimming but see if your local pool has a masters swimming club...if its a true masters course there will be a coach on the deck and they will analyze your stroke and plan your workout for you...if you have a tri club that would be even better...their workouts usually incorporate speed and endurance work...

respectfully, i might suggest yardage over a times/100. i see many swimmers knock out 20-30 min workouts (going fast to slow as their w/o progresses) and wonder where their improvement will come from going forward. imo, more yardage would be more beneficial than a fascination w/ speed... just my opinion...

full disclosure, i am training just to sign up to a tri and not embarrass myself... take my advice w/ a block of salt. i am, however, familiar w/ goggles...

for most people out there, swimming harder till get you the endurance, just upping the yardage without swimming faster is not going to give you much in return.

if the OP is already doing 2k in a workout, its time to start swimming faster, not longer.

with that said, with times over 1min per 50, i think if you can find some help with your stroke, local swimmer, coach, etc, you would see some nice gains there. oftentimes you can get 1 on 1 lessons for a fairly cheap price. 1-3 of these would do you wonders.

precisely my point, i felt the op was trying to improve... no argument otherwise w/ the masses... 

He is trying to improve, but with those times for his 50s, he really needs to work on his stroke. Doing more, for longer, will just ingrain his stroke problems.

In the same boat as Verga...started learning to swim last October and have been happy with progress. I swim about the same - 50m in about 1:10. Have swam in in 0:55 - when I was at the pool 4-5 times a week.

Recently I have been spending more time on the bike and only a couple of swim classes. The classes are great in that we just focus on drills. Very little at the moment on endurance. Though I feel slower - I feel my stroke and technique are getting much better. Hopefully by the time I do my HIM in Oct..my confidence with endurance will be back and speed might have improved marginally.

As the others have said - get into classes to ensure technique is good no that you can swim a reasonable distance. I'm also told - it takes a long time to crack swimming - so manage expectations.

Swimming and cycling are my weakest legs - but I figure I need to get much better at cycling as it is the longest leg of a tri. I can make up for a weak swim with a resonable run pace..

gff

I agree with most of the others.  Changing the structure of your swims (hard sets instead of long, slow, continuous) isn't the magic solution if you still need work on your technique.  With the paces that you're describing, it sure sounds like you could benefit from some a couple lessons or some work with a coach.  You will see more gains in a shorter time period by improving your form than you will doing sets.  The other reason to concentrate on technique instead of swimming hard sets is that if you have something funky going on with your stroke, the hard work could cause you do develop a shoulder injury.

Swimming longer distances is not the solution.

I agree.  At your current 50 pace, it is obvious that technique is more important than speed work.  I'm guessing you actually have a lot of strength if you are doing mile swims.  It probably is a body position thing, that will click and suddenly you'll be 10-15 seconds quicker per 50.  After that you need to develop the muscle memory to maintain this form.

Ok, you are going hard and managing 1:20/50. That's a 2:40 100 time, which is kind of slow. Your endurance is ok, since you can swim 2k in a workout, so that tells me that you have some stroke flaws. Slow swimming is either lack of fitness or lack of technique.

Find an instructor, and fix your stroke. Keep up the fitness swimming, and get the technique corrected. Incorrect technique will not only keep you from getting much faster, but you run a serious risk of injury. Swimming is very much technique based, and poor technique will destroy your shoulders and more.

Take heart, once you fix the technique flaws, you will see those times drop like never before!

John