I'm curious what my fellow slow twitchers do to train for the longest pool events. Of particular interest is input from those of you who also swam as a youth. With way less yardage that you used to do, what can be done to be able to survive a decent mile?
In my case, workouts are limited to an hour and there are usually 3+ per lane, so sets can't be dedicated just to my interests. However, the coaches are quite willing to do what they can for me.
I had a really unpleasant weekend where I raced a 1500 on Friday. I faded a bit and the struggle trying to maintain pace really drained me. In fact, I was really stiff and sore the next day (mainly my lats). I had to kill myself in the 800 on Sat. just to match my 800 split from the previous day. I was still stiff on Sunday.
Monday night, I finally felt recovered from that 1500. Coach had us do a 500 right after warmup. Since I was feeling pretty good, I pushed it, hard. My time in that practice 500 converts to a 400 SCM 5 seconds faster than what I did in the meet on Sunday. I don't know if that's encouraging or depressing. :lmao:
I think what works best for training distance is 1. pace sets with a decent amount of rest (like the 15x100 on 1:30 I mentioned before) and 2. long sets with hardly any rest. Obviously this second type of set can't be done anywhere near race pace. This is a threshold pace type set. For me that's at least five seconds slower per hundred than my pace. I think 1500 yards/meters is a bare minimum for this kind of set.
I swam with the age-groupers today, we did a set that I think is good for distance training.
10:00 "cruiser" where you swim for 10 minutes and hold your best pace, stopping very briefly (a couple sec) to get your time at each 100. This is your base pace, and the coach took great pains to explain that this should be a hard effort, right at your anaerobic threshold.
1:00 rest (though I think we took closer to 2:00 as the coach paused the clock to get everyone pumped)
8 x 100 free on 1:30, hold 2 sec faster than your "cruiser" pace
1:00 rest
6 x 100 free on 1:30, hold 3 sec under pace
1:00 rest
4 x 100 free on 1:30, hold 4 sec under pace
1:00 rest
2 x 100 free on 1:30, hold 5 sec under pace
0:30 rest
1 x 100 free fast, at least 6 sec better than pace
What I like about this set is that you work at different effort levels and you also get a good feeling of pace. The first set of 100s felt fairly easy to me (after all, you aren't going a lot faster than the cruiser pace but you are getting a lot more rest), but I had to increase the tempo starting with the 2nd set of 100s and was breathing harder. By the 3rd set (4x100) I was going very close to max effort, given the fatigue that was settling in by then.
I think what works best for training distance is 1. pace sets with a decent amount of rest (like the 15x100 on 1:30 I mentioned before) and 2. long sets with hardly any rest. Obviously this second type of set can't be done anywhere near race pace. This is a threshold pace type set. For me that's at least five seconds slower per hundred than my pace. I think 1500 yards/meters is a bare minimum for this kind of set.
I swam with the age-groupers today, we did a set that I think is good for distance training.
10:00 "cruiser" where you swim for 10 minutes and hold your best pace, stopping very briefly (a couple sec) to get your time at each 100. This is your base pace, and the coach took great pains to explain that this should be a hard effort, right at your anaerobic threshold.
1:00 rest (though I think we took closer to 2:00 as the coach paused the clock to get everyone pumped)
8 x 100 free on 1:30, hold 2 sec faster than your "cruiser" pace
1:00 rest
6 x 100 free on 1:30, hold 3 sec under pace
1:00 rest
4 x 100 free on 1:30, hold 4 sec under pace
1:00 rest
2 x 100 free on 1:30, hold 5 sec under pace
0:30 rest
1 x 100 free fast, at least 6 sec better than pace
What I like about this set is that you work at different effort levels and you also get a good feeling of pace. The first set of 100s felt fairly easy to me (after all, you aren't going a lot faster than the cruiser pace but you are getting a lot more rest), but I had to increase the tempo starting with the 2nd set of 100s and was breathing harder. By the 3rd set (4x100) I was going very close to max effort, given the fatigue that was settling in by then.
