Swimming 12 miles a day

Whole lot less impact stress than running. Plus, if you have good technique, you can go forever.

Elite swimmers train longer than any other sport. You have to give them props for mental toughness... same scene lap after lap.

Phelps is training these distances per recent reports.

How it breaks out is two sessions per day, usu 6-8K per session.

Evans swam the 1500 so her volume was prob on the higher side relative to others. Since these athletes usu swim aerobically at under 1;10/100 you can see they easily cover 5K or more per hour (all rough approximations in case any of you mathletes try to challenge me)

For an elite distance swimmer, a 12 mile workout could be knocked out in 4 hours of training. The reason Evans may have taken 7 is because of various kicking drills.

My guess is she can kick a mile faster than I can freestyle one.

The thing that's amazing is that the best stay so injury free. One small quirk in your form and you have a shoulder injury, simple as that.

Janet Evans swam the 400 and 800, not the 1500 (no 1500 for major international/NCAA events) -

12 miles in 4 hours - that's a stretch, but doable. Marathon endurance swimmers maybe, but not Evans or any competitive pool swimmer - like the man said, kicks/drills/etc. will slow you down a lot.

Incidentally, Kieren Perkins, world 1500m champ for over ten years, trained by swimming 30K per day - in the ocean. DAMN.

My high school always had good swimmers. They usually swam distance in the mornings (5:30am until 7:00am or so) and did training after school.

The best swim coaches/authorities will say that injuries relate to poor technique, not volume...altho with Krayzelburg's shoulder issues one must wonder. Importantly, they start swimmers at age 6 or so and by the time they are 15-16 they have their strokes down pat and can handle the volume usually.