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:
Parents
Former Member
Sounds like you need to adjust your race strategy just a little bit. Of course you run the risk of taking it out too slow, but I would back off a tad early in the race. Try and negative split your next distance event.
I always even or negative split. Even the 800 and 400 races after I was obliterated from the 1500 were both negative split. They were just a lot slower than I wanted. Like Kirk touched on, I think the issue is just not enough solid distance work.
It's not like I went out too fast and died. I did a sensible first 500, tried to accelerate from there, but couldn't hold that pace.
SCM
01:10.5
01:13.1
01:13.8
01:14.0
01:13.2
01:12.5
01:12.5
01:12.8
01:13.2
01:14.3
01:14.3
01:14.4
01:15.3
01:15.0
01:13.6
Sounds like you need to adjust your race strategy just a little bit. Of course you run the risk of taking it out too slow, but I would back off a tad early in the race. Try and negative split your next distance event.
I always even or negative split. Even the 800 and 400 races after I was obliterated from the 1500 were both negative split. They were just a lot slower than I wanted. Like Kirk touched on, I think the issue is just not enough solid distance work.
It's not like I went out too fast and died. I did a sensible first 500, tried to accelerate from there, but couldn't hold that pace.
SCM
01:10.5
01:13.1
01:13.8
01:14.0
01:13.2
01:12.5
01:12.5
01:12.8
01:13.2
01:14.3
01:14.3
01:14.4
01:15.3
01:15.0
01:13.6
