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 really think the key to a successful distance swim is knowing how fast you should start. If you haven't been training a lot of distance it's very easy to start out too fast. What seems easy at the beginning of a race might quickly turn into an unsustainable pace after a few hundred yards. That doesn't mean to start really slow, but it does mean you need to know your pace and what it feels like to swim at that pace.
+1
I really think the key to a successful distance swim is knowing how fast you should start. If you haven't been training a lot of distance it's very easy to start out too fast. What seems easy at the beginning of a race might quickly turn into an unsustainable pace after a few hundred yards. That doesn't mean to start really slow, but it does mean you need to know your pace and what it feels like to swim at that pace.
+1
