Thanksgiving is approaching and it is time to resurrect the Turducken Workout, as posted by swimsuit addict in her blog two years ago. From her blog:
Today my swimsuits and I decamped to Northwest Florida for the holidays. I had easy flights and arrived before noon, and was able to get in a swim at the Panama City Beach Aquatic Center this afternoon. The pool was set up SCY; here’s the workout I did.
1000 warmup (400 swim, 200 Rev IM K, 200 Pull, 200 Rev IM Drill/swim by 25)
Then one of the other swimmers hailed me—it was my swimming pal Paul--I met him down here several years ago, and look forward to swimming with him whenever I visit. I felt lucky to have run into him on my first trip to the pool. I joined in with him and Joe and Jeff from Germany for the last bit of their workout, which was
100 Swim
250 Pull
150 Pull, desc. By 50s
4 x 75 Pull fast @ 1:30ish
Then they all left, and I had the entire pool to myself for the rest of my workout. It seemed like a good opportunity to do my turducken set, which I hesitate to inflict on anyone who’s not a happy IMer.
Turducken set: A turducken is a turkey that is stuffed with a duck, which in turn has been stuffed with a chicken. I’ve never tasted one, but I feel like I’ve been reading about them as a novelty food item for at least a decade. The latest article I saw about turducken was not about food at all, but about privacy law, and ever since I read it, the word has been rolling around in my head. So I decided I would assemble stroke turduckens by stuffing a 50 of one stroke into the middle of a 100 of another stroke, then sticking the whole thing into a 200 of yet another stroke. I did four rounds of these; on the first, turkey=fly, duck=back, and chicken=***; the strokes rotate through the IM thereafter. The set looked like this:
4 x 350 @ :30-:40 rest interval
1st 350=100 FL/50 BK/50 BR/50 BK/100 FL
2nd 350=100 BK/50 BR/50 FR/50 BR/100 BK
3rd 350=100 BR/50 FR/50 FL/50 FR/100 BR
4th 350=100 FR/50 FL/50 BK/50 FL/100 FR
On each round I aimed to do the middle 50 at 200 IM pace; the 50 before it as build and the 50 after it as recovery, and the turkey 100s at the front and back at basic aerobic pace.
Kick set: 7 x 100 K @ 2:00
To continue with today’s theme, I made a 400IM/200IM/100IM turducken kick set and sliced it into manageable 100 yard portions. So my 7 100s were:
100 FL
100 BK
50FL/50BK
100 IM
50BR/50FR
100 BR
100 FR
Then I did a quick 200 warmdown and hopped out.
This evening I went to my new (temporary) gym and did arm weights. Tomorrow I hope to get a swim in before driving up to my mom’s house in Alabama.
And, of course, any Thanksgiving-themed post provides a chance for me to use this smiley: :turkey:
I enjoyed the Turducken game.
Today I was daydreaming about how to make one for twelve days of Christmas, where each day you build upon the previous days.
...but then I realized that we exchange a total of 364 gifts with our true love. Even at one length per gift, that would take us to 9100 yards by the twelfth day. Anyone have a more reasonable way?
I think the trick is to make some of the numbers things other than lengths—like strokes, or stroke cycles, or anything else that might come to mind. The following is one possibility. If you start from Day 1 and work up to all twelve days you end up with a 4350 scy workout (or scm depending on the pool).****** If you attempt it LCM—well, that will be one everlasting cascade of workout gifts!
12 lengths IM *
11 fathoms sculling **
10 strokes of corkscrew
9 breaststroke kicks
8 dolphin dives
7 lengths of freestyle
6 fly stroke cycles
5 streamline jumps! ***
4 breaststroke pull-outs ****
3 lengths back
2 half-length sprints *****
And a 50 dolphin kick on back!
* i.e., a 300 IM to start day 12 in style!
** 11 fathoms = 22 yards. A pushout will get you the additional 1.5 fathoms to round out the pool length.
*** Find a spot mid-pool where the water depth exceeds your height by a couple of feet or more. Jump off the bottom and streamline tightly, and see how far above the surface you can go.
**** You can surface between these. I counted 2 of these per 25 in the yardage, for a total of 50 yards on each Day 4, but if you don’t surface to breathe between the pullouts you might can fit all 4 into 25 yards. That would reduce the total set yardage by 225 yards.
***** Half-length sprint = 12.5 yards all-out / 12.5 yards easy, choice of stroke.
****** The total yardage assumes that you stretch out some elements—like 10 strokes corkscrew or 6 fly stroke cycles—to equal one pool length. If you have a good memory and don’t need to check what’s next on the printed workout (I would suggest putting one at each end of the pool), you can always transition from one day’s gifts to the next mid-pool. That would change the yardage a bit.
I enjoyed the Turducken game.
Today I was daydreaming about how to make one for twelve days of Christmas, where each day you build upon the previous days.
...but then I realized that we exchange a total of 364 gifts with our true love. Even at one length per gift, that would take us to 9100 yards by the twelfth day. Anyone have a more reasonable way?
I think the trick is to make some of the numbers things other than lengths—like strokes, or stroke cycles, or anything else that might come to mind. The following is one possibility. If you start from Day 1 and work up to all twelve days you end up with a 4350 scy workout (or scm depending on the pool).****** If you attempt it LCM—well, that will be one everlasting cascade of workout gifts!
12 lengths IM *
11 fathoms sculling **
10 strokes of corkscrew
9 breaststroke kicks
8 dolphin dives
7 lengths of freestyle
6 fly stroke cycles
5 streamline jumps! ***
4 breaststroke pull-outs ****
3 lengths back
2 half-length sprints *****
And a 50 dolphin kick on back!
* i.e., a 300 IM to start day 12 in style!
** 11 fathoms = 22 yards. A pushout will get you the additional 1.5 fathoms to round out the pool length.
*** Find a spot mid-pool where the water depth exceeds your height by a couple of feet or more. Jump off the bottom and streamline tightly, and see how far above the surface you can go.
**** You can surface between these. I counted 2 of these per 25 in the yardage, for a total of 50 yards on each Day 4, but if you don’t surface to breathe between the pullouts you might can fit all 4 into 25 yards. That would reduce the total set yardage by 225 yards.
***** Half-length sprint = 12.5 yards all-out / 12.5 yards easy, choice of stroke.
****** The total yardage assumes that you stretch out some elements—like 10 strokes corkscrew or 6 fly stroke cycles—to equal one pool length. If you have a good memory and don’t need to check what’s next on the printed workout (I would suggest putting one at each end of the pool), you can always transition from one day’s gifts to the next mid-pool. That would change the yardage a bit.
