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:
You are right. The chlorine is eating away what's left of my brain. And regardless, 78 is much more of a manageable number!
I like the concept of a "12 days of Christmas" workout, but some thought is needed to invent something useful and practical. First of all, you need to be sure that the 12th day isn't impossible.
If you added N lengths each day (SCY or SCM) that would escalate to 1950 on the 12th day. Generally an easy distance, unless you are giving lengths of something like butterfly, corkscrew or SDK.
If you add N 50s each day, that's 3900 on the 12th day. Again, pretty reasonable, depending on the makeup of each 50.
If you add N 100s each day, that 7800 on the 12th day. Now there is a worthy challenge. I've not done more than about 5250 in one day since I was 24 years old, a few decades ago and based on what I read on this forum, very few masters swimmers do anywhere near 8k/day, and even those that do, don't do it very often.
The next problem is that for the first several days, you won't be doing enough distance to design a good workout. I suppose the "first day gift" could be racing a 100, but then you would wind up racing a 100 every day for 12 days. You could allow for extra warmup and warmdown in the first several days.
The biggest prolem I see is that there is no way I could get to a pool to swim for 12 straight days starting anywhere near Christmas day. Family responsibilities and pool closings make that just impossible. In fact, finding 12 straight days any time is very very difficult. I suspect this is true for most masters swimmers.
You are right. The chlorine is eating away what's left of my brain. And regardless, 78 is much more of a manageable number!
I like the concept of a "12 days of Christmas" workout, but some thought is needed to invent something useful and practical. First of all, you need to be sure that the 12th day isn't impossible.
If you added N lengths each day (SCY or SCM) that would escalate to 1950 on the 12th day. Generally an easy distance, unless you are giving lengths of something like butterfly, corkscrew or SDK.
If you add N 50s each day, that's 3900 on the 12th day. Again, pretty reasonable, depending on the makeup of each 50.
If you add N 100s each day, that 7800 on the 12th day. Now there is a worthy challenge. I've not done more than about 5250 in one day since I was 24 years old, a few decades ago and based on what I read on this forum, very few masters swimmers do anywhere near 8k/day, and even those that do, don't do it very often.
The next problem is that for the first several days, you won't be doing enough distance to design a good workout. I suppose the "first day gift" could be racing a 100, but then you would wind up racing a 100 every day for 12 days. You could allow for extra warmup and warmdown in the first several days.
The biggest prolem I see is that there is no way I could get to a pool to swim for 12 straight days starting anywhere near Christmas day. Family responsibilities and pool closings make that just impossible. In fact, finding 12 straight days any time is very very difficult. I suspect this is true for most masters swimmers.
