I think that not enough attention has been paid to sustainable training.
When you are young and vigorous, you train hard (a la Diablo), giving the best of you, maximum
speed, maximum duration, ready to vomit after a hard set... You want to win your meeting, to beat
the competition. You do competitive training.
And one day, after a few years of intensive training, you understand that you will not become rich
and famous through your swimming. You will never make it to the Olympics, not even to the national
level. It's time to enter "sustainable training" mode. At this time, you have to be wanting to
swim for yourself, for the pleasure of feeling the water flow along your body, for the
rejuvenating effect of a good swim after a day at the office, for the pleasure of feeling your
limbs, your heart and muscles fit and efficient (and for the pleasure of leaving in your bubbles
with a few elegant strokes those arrogant water thrashing teens, and those overconditionned high
VO2max triathletes, too...). And you will do that for decades, not for a few years, avoiding
injuries. In a sustainable way.
-- Olivier