Swim Training in an Endless Pool

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Endless Pool owner Ken Glah had the fastest swim time of any top-10 finisher in the Ironman Triathlon. Jan Wanklyn is also a world-class triathlete.

Ken Glah, a native of West Chester, PA, and a world-class triathlete, spoke with us just after he returned from the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii, where he had finished seventh. The race, which takes approximately 8.5 hours, begins with a 2.4-mile ocean swim, followed by a 112-mile bicycle ride, topped off by a 26.2-mile run. This was Glah's 14th Hawaii Ironman event, and his 32nd or 33rd triathlon overall.

So, you would expect him to be a fanatic about training, and you would be right. Indeed, with the exception of time taken to download and study his heart rate information, he sounds like a perpetual-motion machine not unlike the Endless Pool. Ken uses the pool in several ways in his weekly regimen, rattling the workouts off the way most people talk about picking up the dry cleaning.

A half-hour in an Endless Pool is, of course, a great way to warm up for a bicycle ride of, say, 100 to 150 miles, which Glah often does. And it would be indolent not to follow up a 30-mile run with a soothing, no-impact, half-hour water run in the Endless Pool in his basement. (Naturally, Glah selected the deeper option in his Endless Pool.) Then there's his weekly extended water run, a workout in itself.

For a change of scenery, Glah and his wife Jan Wanklyn go to a nearby YMCA for a 4,500-meter spin in the lap pool. Jan, a native of Australia, is a world-class triathlete in her own right. The pair met during a 1987 triathlon in Réunion off the coast of South Africa.

It must be helping. Glah began his athletic career as a runner and only began swimming competitively when he turned professional as a triathlete at the age of 20. In the Hawaii race, he had the fastest swim time (just over 52 minutes) of any top-10 finisher.

Glah's latest plans include a series of "long course" races, a 1,500-meter swim, 40-kilometer bicycle ride, and a 10-kilometer run requiring roughly half the time of a triathlon and fewer Ironman competitions.

Partly, this is a concession to raising a young daughter, partly just a sensible adjustment to year-in and year-out rigorous training. "It can get a little crazy," Glah concedes.

 

 

 

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