Big Shoulders 5K All Butterfly – A Personal Odyssey

I was fortunate enough to get into Masters swimming in early 1986. In 1990, I started doing triathlons, and by 1998 I was hit by the Ironman bug and competed in four Ironmans. After two knee operations and pretty much triathlon burnout, I needed something else to satisfy my desire for extreme sport. I had completed the Big Shoulders 5K open water swim in Lake Michigan in beautiful downtown Chicago a few times and I noticed a swimmer there doing it all butterfly, but wearing a wetsuit. So I thought, "Gee, why not try it but try it without a wetsuit."

Having the endurance base of being a triathlete, and the skill at doing butterfly, I laid down the gauntlet and told my friends and fellow swim team members that I was going to do Big Shoulders all butterfly. This was in 2004. My first attempt was to see if I could finish it, and then if I did finish it, how best to rack it up for experience and train for more. Well, not only did I finish it, but I loved the whole experience of it. I now almost solely focus on the butterfly stroke, and am ready to try a 10K all butterfly.

If any of you have had thoughts of trying to do the same, here is how I go about training.

One thing to keep in mind though, and this may not pertain to you but it sure has to me: if you are going to train for long distance swimming, your sprint times may suffer the consequences.

I took off from competing and put all my training towards butterfly. I'd go to the pool at my health club and immediately start swimming fly with no freestyle warm-ups. I would swim fly for at least one hour or longer. It's important to breathe every stroke. Illinois Masters swimmer Tom McCabe taught me that it's no crime to breathe every stroke. In fact, he breathes every stroke even while sprinting, and sprinting quite fast too. By incorporating this breathing style, I was able to slow down my technique and focus on my arm entry and kick. I counted my strokes per lane. I worked at cutting down the number of stokes and tried to hold that number pretty much the entire workout. This made me longer and taller in the water. This gave me glide and momentum. The mental part became easier because I developed rhythm. I played around with breathing on each side to break up the monotony. I was never much on using kick boards during swim team practices. When we had kicking drills, I would dolphin kick underwater. I would kick mostly on my stomach, but turning over on my back and kicking dolphin with my arms extended also helped my stroke.

The hardest part of the regime is that you must adhere to butterfly throughout most of the year. Never mind the funny looks other gym members will be giving you. You're a butterfly swimmer and you're going to knock off miles doing it.