Monday: Slowing It Up And Keeping Those Feet Planted On The Wall

Winding up this month of slow but thoughtful swims is almost coming to an end.  Next week I need to decide if I should be practicing at a faster pace or not.  To be honest when I start thinking back at my swimming over the last few years I think I end up swimming better at swim meets when I've been getting in more yardage but at slower intervals compared to less yardage at faster intervals.  Not that I'm advocating garbage yardage just for the sake of doing yardage but I'm thinking my body does better swimming at a consistent pace with more rest than sprint after sprint with little rest.  Maybe it's all in my head and I'm using it as an excuse to have easier intervals.  Either way I like rest and being able to take in some oxygen.  Go figure.

Today's workout started with a 350 on my own before we started the warm up set.  We did a 200 kick followed by a 400 pull.  I used paddles for the first 300 of that 400.  (950)

Main Free Set:
3x100 on 1:25
2x150 on 2:05
300 on 4:20 (i think i left on the 4 minute mark)
4x75's on 1:05
6x50's on 55
The fast lane which I didn't swim in today did the 100's on 1:15 and I don't know what the 150's were on.  I swam with a fellow 6am'er on slower intervals so she could make them while some 7:15'ers who came at 6am swam on the faster intervals.  I could have made the faster intervals but why bother.  (1500/2450)

Stroke:
4x
75 Kick
50 Drill
25 Swim
IM order (600/3050)

Stroke Set:
3x IM order
75 (50 stroke / 25 free)
75 (25 stroke / 25 free / 25 stroke)
75 (25 free / 25 stroke / 25 free)
75 (50 free / 25 stroke)
The first two rounds we did them on 1:15.  The 3rd round which was the breaststroke round we only did the first 2x75's and did them on 1:20 (750/3800)

So today's workout wasn't the most grueling workout.  I actually liked the main free set.  Once again I really thought about adding some kick into my freestyle.  I'm not saying it's a natural part of my stroke yet but I'm working on it.  It's still more of a one beat kick that helps me rotate to my side so all in all it's helping me swim better.  I'm also actually working on my turns at each wall.  Remembering to keep my legs open and my feet planted on the wall apart as opposed to being super close to each other.  It's amazing that since I learned that how many swimmers I notice who like me keep the feet almost glued together in the flip and off the wall.  No wonder why I and many others get nothing off the wall. 

Total month and year to date yardage is now up to 54,575.  I have a lap swim workout ready for tomorrow morning that will mean that if I do that and Wednesday morning swim I should hit 60,000 for the month.  Which was my goal.

Comments

[jim in LA]

I think the whole thing about "garbage yards" is something of a canard. I also am on a pace to go over 60K for January, and have sharply dropped my workout times for 1000 frees and 400 backs (and bear in mind I think the 200 back is a distance race) - mostly by swimming "overdistance" (along with my times, my first-thing-in-the-morning resting heart rate has come down a beat or two, also - so it's working). My target in January has been to swim more than 90% of my yardage inside the "aerobic" range and below the "anerobic" range (that is, below the "lactate threshold") - and to swim longer distances under the theory that you can't swim a competent 200 (or 400 IM) if you can't comfortably do longer distances (the "lactate threshold" or anerobic level is the heart rate at the end of a timed 30-minute swim - so, if that rate is 150, the aerobic training range is somewhere between 115 to 150 beats per minute, with slightly different training effects if you're at the high or low end of that range). There's a time and a place for anerobic swimming - as one of my better coaches said a very long time ago, "if you want to swim fast then you have to swim fast." But older people - and that means you, Mr. 17th Man, but it goes double for me - need more time to recover due to their slowing metabolisms, thus at the competition phase of the season (that is, March and April, on the eve of regionals and nationals), anerobic yardage (the so-called "good" yardage as opposed to "garbage" yardage) shouldn't account (according to one of the better training books I have recently read) for much more than 15% of the yardage for a master's swimmer (it's more for a kid who's swimming at the top of the world class - but, out of their 11,000 to 15,000 yards a day, not much more than 30% of the yardage is serious sprinting; the exception is the sprinters who are doing 50s and 100s, but they live in a parallel universe and the 50 sign of a personality defect that is larger than can be cured simply by working out in a pool). And this could go on and on, but you get the idea ...