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'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:
SCM
01:10.5 01:13.1 2:26.6
01:13.8 01:14.0 2:27.8 4:54.4
01:13.2 01:12.5 2:25.7
01:12.5 01:12.8 2:25.3 4:51.0
01:13.2 01:14.3 2:27.5
01:14.3 01:14.4 2:28.7 4:56.2
01:15.3 01:15.0
01:13.6
You have several areas of discussion:
1) what can be done to be able to survive a decent mile?
2) Being sore after the meet and
3) swimming a 500 in practice that's faster than your 400 in a meet.
my suggestions & comments
1) practice fast hard and often, you said 1 hour a day,
how many times a week?
make the most of it, step it up
talk with your coach about what you want to accomplish
2) increase your training so meets are much easier than practice and you're not likely to get sore, we get sore when we do something new, when we strain, when we do more than we normally do.
3) your fast 500 in practice is encouraging
keep training hard and attempt to swim even faster in your next meets.
you should be better.
4) take a look at your 50 splits, a 1500 is 30 50's, most of them should be right around the same pace, looks like you had some pace issues and maybe went too hard on your 2nd 400 in that race,
consider sustainable paces, negative splitting, even splitting, and building.
For my own feeble contribution to the discussion, I typically do one of three things when I want to work on distance.
Plan A (lane to myself or one other person)
Option A: 10 x 200 at BASE (0:20R)
Option B: 5 x 400 at BASE (0:40R)
Option C: Broken mile of 275, 250, 225...25 (0:10R)
Plan B (organized circle swimming)
500-1000 at a time, catching the wall for 10-15 seconds to chug a drink whenever things are getting a bit clogged up
Plan C (messy free-for-all)
Continuous fartlek, obstacle course
See you there! :banana:
Me three!
Having recently returned to the pool after 15 years away, I am discovering that a) I'm getting old and b) it's going to be harder than I thought to get back into distance shape.
So far I've swum a 1000 and a 500 in meets and they were okay. My pacing was decent (at least I think so - both were stopwatch timed meets) and my times were actually a little faster than I calculated, but nowhere near the times I want to swim. Some of the sets in this thread are giving me some great ideas. (I suspect a few whacks with the reality stick are also needed.)
But I'm also discovering that one of the great things about masters is that I can swim lots of different events, which is something I stopped doing in college (and really from age 13 on with the exception of summer league swimming). How fun!
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.
You've got my vote, Elaine! :cheerleader:
See you there! :banana:
That's where we first met! :chug: Are you swimming the 1650, too? If not, you sure were a great counter for me at Greenville! ;)
Me three!
:cheerleader: We'll see you there, ekw! Look for me in a black and blue Yingfa and a USMS cap, if you don't recognize me by the picture. I will introduce you to Swimosaur. If you look at my album on Greensboro Nationals, Swimosaur is the second photo from the left. And, I am the one in the "Forumite" t-shirt in the first photo.
Are you swimming the 1650, too?
That day I'm swimming the 1650, 200 fly, and 400 IM. All on the same day. I've had my eye on it for a couple of years.
You in?
