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:
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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 do a fair amount of the 1st type of set, but very little of the 2nd. I definitely think that is what's missing. In 2009 I would occasionally do sets like 6x500, 4x800, etc. At Nationals that year I did the 1000/1650 same day double and survived OK.
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 do a fair amount of the 1st type of set, but very little of the 2nd. I definitely think that is what's missing. In 2009 I would occasionally do sets like 6x500, 4x800, etc. At Nationals that year I did the 1000/1650 same day double and survived OK.
