My apologies up front for asking a question that has been asked on various different threads over the past couple of years I have been in USMS. I don't remember the responses, however, and can't seem to find the answers in my searches.
Here's the deal: I started as a breaststroker and only competed in the three breaststroke events as a newbie. Seven months later, however, I competed in a pentathlon and found I really enjoyed racing the stroke sprints and 100 IM. Last year, I ended up winning my age group and felt even more encouraged to continue working on my other strokes.
Recently, I attempted an easy 400 IM in workout to see if I could swim a 100 fly without pausing at the walls. I came in at 7:24 :cane:, but it wasn't the worst in my age group in the rankings! :D
Today, after my usual three day post-meet bout of insomnia, I thought, what the heck, I'll try it again. (Yes, I AM crazy!) Again, I took the fly out very easy with the intent of surviving without rescue. My time ended up 7:16, now placing me 56 out of 71 in my age group; still low, but improved. :wiggle: So, now, I'm thinking of giving it some real effort and see where I can go with this...
50 breaststroke is my best event, followed by 100 breaststroke. After that is 50 free and 100 IM. Don't even ask where my 200 breaststroke rates... :bitching: But, my 400 IM, with some effort, will have it beat soon enough.
As a six day per week swimmer on pace to beat my goal of 400 miles for the year, how would you recommend I plan my swim week out to train 400 IM without losing breaststroke speed? I average 3,000 yards per workout and currently dedicate Mondays and Fridays to Allen's breaststroke sets or Ande's sprint IM sets that he wrote up for me. Saturday is my recovery day. September thru May, I train in a challenging coached adult program and swim 3,500 - 3,800yards; a mix of speed, endurance, etc.
Any advice or suggestions would be most appreciated! (Oh, and, by the way, I am working up to swimming 400m IM and 200yd fly, too.) :afraid:I hope to swim 400IM at Dixie Zone Championships, in August, and see where it goes from there. :worms:
The hardest thing to do is get a group of adult swimmers to do true sprint sets because they feel time is money and sitting on the wall recovering or even recovery swimming is a waste, especially at early A.M swims. It is much easier to give the group a long set than a sprint set when at the end half of them want to know the yardage, which is why I also refuse to put yardage on workouts.
I don't swim with a workout group anymore, and while I do GTD and FLOG my yardage, I no longer worry that I'm not swimming enough yardage to meet the goal I set at the beginning of the year. I am slowly coming to terms with the "quality over quantity" aspect of my swims. Today's workout (on the way to work), was a total of 1500 yards:
200 SKP
4x100 hard bk broken by 75/25 w/5s rest after 75 on 3:00
200 easy
4x25 kick AFAP on 1:20
200 easy
The point being not so much that I can come up with a great workout, but that I'm trying to emphasize quality over quantity. I could clearly have done more yardage in the time allotted, but that probably wouldn't have been as useful.
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The hardest thing to do is get a group of adult swimmers to do true sprint sets because they feel time is money and sitting on the wall recovering or even recovery swimming is a waste, especially at early A.M swims. It is much easier to give the group a long set than a sprint set when at the end half of them want to know the yardage, which is why I also refuse to put yardage on workouts.
I don't swim with a workout group anymore, and while I do GTD and FLOG my yardage, I no longer worry that I'm not swimming enough yardage to meet the goal I set at the beginning of the year. I am slowly coming to terms with the "quality over quantity" aspect of my swims. Today's workout (on the way to work), was a total of 1500 yards:
200 SKP
4x100 hard bk broken by 75/25 w/5s rest after 75 on 3:00
200 easy
4x25 kick AFAP on 1:20
200 easy
The point being not so much that I can come up with a great workout, but that I'm trying to emphasize quality over quantity. I could clearly have done more yardage in the time allotted, but that probably wouldn't have been as useful.
Skip
