10x300 training for the 1000?

I think that's a good set to find out where you are at aerobically. If you can swim all ten of the 300s and continue to make the sendoff, you are definitely ready for a 1000. A typical set my team does on Mondays is lots of 300s with maybe 10-15 seconds rest between. The faster lanes do about 15 of them, the slower lanes probably more like 12. Unless I'm in really good shape or having a good day I tend to hit a wall about halfway through. Sometimes I'm able to regroup by the end, but that middle area is often a struggle. By the way, I hate this set and I usually skip Monday because of it! As far as pacing, I can typically hold around five seconds per hundred slower than my race pace on a set like this.

I've been scouring as much information as possible trying to find tips on training for the 1000 Free. I've searched these boards looking for tips on everything from the 500 to 1650. Anything beyond the 500 is where my knowledge base starts to tap out a bit. I'm comfortable with what to do to train for a 500. I've raced plenty of 500's - It's kinda like two 200's "slices of bread" with a hold on and don't die between the 200 & 300 "filling". But looking at some of my old sprint tri race results, I decided I really needed to give the 1000 a shot. I can't recall for the life of me how I trained for the 800 meter swim then. I'm pretty sure I swam open water for an hour once a week, and did two 75-90 minute pool sessions with a mix of things ranging from sprinty-HIIT type stuff to things like 12 x 100 holding a hard pace on anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds rest. Anyways, while looking for info on the 1000, I came across this set of 10 x 300 on this board and on a few other places. I couldn't find anywhere what the pace design of the set was, so I assumed it was supposed to be somewhere just over threshold pace (more like an aerobic or EN1) and decided to set the rest at 15 seconds. So given my 3x300 on 1:00 test set gives me a 1:24.27 pace currently (and steadily dropping), I figured attempting to hold around 4:20-4:25 on 4:45 would be reasonable. Maybe I was just having an off day, but these were mostly all 4:29-4:31. By the last three, I had to do them on 5:00 and despite focusing on technique was pretty disappointed finishing up with a 4:35 and two 4:40's. My average pace over them all was 1:31.60 per 100. But they FELT like 1:26-1:27s. Actually, the more I think about it I was most certainly having an off day because my 1 hour swim pace was exactly 1:31.6 and that day I had woken overnight with a horrible cold and (stupidly) swam it anyways and still finished the first 2000 in 29 minutes (~1:27 pace). So, perhaps, I'll just do better the next time I swim it by default. But I'm left wondering whether this set is really for the 1000 or if it's better for my 1.2 mile open water this summer. For anyone who has done this set, what were the set goals? What percent of your 1000 race or practice threshold pace were you aiming to hold and what was the rest? I'm also curious how your practice pace tends to compare with your race pace for the 1000. I realize that is a totally separate question but it's something I've been wondering since the 1000 is such a pacing game that without having a solid idea of your true 1000 race pace, you could be awfully off-target with your practice pacing easily. I entered a seed time of 13:59 for my March race and I'm really not sure how that will hold up. I hope it's a LOT faster - a 13:30 would make me super happy...I have a set coming up where I'm going to try to hold this pace but on whatever rest interval will allow me to hold it. But I'm starting to wonder if my best 1000 practice time (14:20) is closer to accurate. Thanks so much for any advice or info you could give. The 10x300 set is popular because there is a lot of coaching information built around ~30 minutes of sustained effort being anaerobic threshold. T30, where you swim straight, as fast as possible, for 30 minutes, is considered a good proxy of threshold pace without lactate testing. The underlying theory is that you're training your threshold pace, which should push up the amount of speed supplied by your aerobic system on everything from 500 to >1 hour swims. The idea then is that 10x300 (and similar sets) simulates threshold pace and allows you to work right at it. It's worth noting that the set is designed for faster swimmers, for whom the whole set would take not much more than thirty minutes, whereas for you or me it would be closer to 40-45 minutes. This has made me think that I should, perhaps, do fewer repetitions. For a while 10x300 was a mainstay set for me, and I would do them holding the fastest speed possible with a short-ish rest (about 15 seconds), trying to be at or faster than threshold through the set, but I've recently been thinking that the set was too hard at 40 minutes to repeat often. Now I'm thinking more in terms of longer sets that descend intensity, or shorter sets that hold that intensity for 20-30 minutes. I would also point out, if you're not aware of this, that 10x300 or any threshold set isn't the magic bullet for 1000 performance. You'll be best off with a mix of different sets, some of them much faster.

I think that's a good set to find out where you are at aerobically. If you can swim all ten of the 300s and continue to make the sendoff, you are definitely ready for a 1000. A typical set my team does on Mondays is lots of 300s with maybe 10-15 seconds rest between. The faster lanes do about 15 of them, the slower lanes probably more like 12. Unless I'm in really good shape or having a good day I tend to hit a wall about halfway through. Sometimes I'm able to regroup by the end, but that middle area is often a struggle. By the way, I hate this set and I usually skip Monday because of it! As far as pacing, I can typically hold around five seconds per hundred slower than my race pace on a set like this. This is super helpful! Thanks!

The 10x300 set is popular because there is a lot of coaching information built around ~30 minutes of sustained effort being anaerobic threshold. T30, where you swim straight, as fast as possible, for 30 minutes, is considered a good proxy of threshold pace without lactate testing. ..... I would also point out, if you're not aware of this, that 10x300 or any threshold set isn't the magic bullet for 1000 performance. You'll be best off with a mix of different sets, some of them much faster. Yeah, this was just one of a variety of sets I hadn't tried before and had seen mentioned in connection to training for the 1000 a few times. So I figured I could add it to the sets I was doing specifically targeted at that 1000. That's interesting making the connection between this set and the T-30. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be held at that speed or slightly less fast. I definitely took a nosedive after 30 minutes. Everything before that, even though I looked at the times and went "meh", looked pretty consistent when I pulled up the garmin results. Everything had consistent pacing for 1-7. The last three is where the pacing got wonky and I couldn't hold the interval. Based on knelson's comments and this, I think next week I will go for that 4:45 again, but with a goal of 6-7 reps and I think knowing there is less, I probably could attempt to hold 1:27-1:29. Once I can do that, I can try to do either increased reps or faster pace.

I've swam the 1000 and 1650 a bunch (and the 800 and 1500 in meters) and while I've done a good amount of the 100s, 200s, 300s mix, I've found a new tool thanks to one of my wife's Christmas presents. She got me the FINIS Tempo trainer and I've found it really helpful in setting pace. For instance you can set it to the 1:30 pace you want to do per 100 and then make sure it beeps when you flip at the 100. If it's after your flip your going to fast, before, you need to increase. For example last week I did a set of 10x400 and set the tempo trainer at :40 seconds. Then I swim the 400 trying to get the trainer to beep at each 50 flip, then take the 40 seconds rest and go on the next beep. It seems to be working well because I tried a couple 400s later in the week without it and held the same pace.

I agree that this is a good aerobic set and we use it quite a bit as a gauge as to where we are aerobically. We also do a fair amount of work at 1000 pace to get the feel fore desired splits. The 1000 requires both endurance and a great feel for pace. We have done 20x50s to the feet on :45/:50 at your desired pace, 16x100 at 1000 pace and 10x200s at 1000 pace. The goal is really pace so the distance does not matter as much as the splits. Good luck.

you want to train for the 1000 Free. You're comfortable with training for the 500. you've raced plenty of 500's Your best 1000 practice time (14:20) How many times a week do you train? How far do you go in each practice? Do you train alone or with a coach and a group? what is your age? What is your height? What is your weight? How determined are you to improve your 1,000 time? Do you have a tech suit? you can find a ton of info in Swim Faster Faster Racing the 1000 is just a slightly easier pace than a 500 your goal is to swim smooth and steady. Ande

you want to train for the 1000 Free. You're comfortable with training for the 500. you've raced plenty of 500's Your best 1000 practice time (14:20) How many times a week do you train? How far do you go in each practice? Do you train alone or with a coach and a group? what is your age? What is your height? What is your weight? How determined are you to improve your 1,000 time? Do you have a tech suit? you can find a ton of info in Swim Faster Faster Racing the 1000 is just a slightly easier pace than a 500 your goal is to swim smooth and steady. Ande I've already gone through your blog-post quite a bit. It's very helpful! I don't think I'm really looking for recommendations specific to me, though, since I'm still at that fun point in a masters "comeback" that I'm dropping time just by getting in the pool. Add yards for three weeks, drop back a week, add yards for three weeks, drop back week. I haven't even slowed down in dropping monthly time since I got back in and don't expect to anytime soon. My last master's stint was from 26-29. I had no pool access from 22-26 at all and didn't work out much. I started at very similar times to where I am right now - actually I used my DEC 2006 SCM results as seed times for my DEC 2015 SCM meet and did very well using those times as a benchmark. By the time I did the last season of sprint tris at 29 I was averaging my 800m swim in 9:15-9:30 depending on conditions (no wetsuit). That might be around 10:21 - 10:40 for 1000scy. Probably a little slower than I could have gone if I had swam it in college but those numbers made me pretty happy. Now I'm 35 and have been swimming again since April. I'll spare you from the women's tech suit thread, where I've discussed the difficulty of fitting a 6', 175lb mom-shape (we might have a solution). This week I did 17500 yards in 5 practices . This 10x300, which I had seen recommended several times to help with the 1000, was very different from the training style than I am used to. I coach one of only 2 master's teams in over an hour drive: the group I coach has 3 days a week 60 minute practices, so what I can do with them is often limited by time. My background comes from HIIT-style training with most of the aerobic work done as warm-up, cool down, drill, or swim between hard sets. I never had two-a-days in the pool (though I did have dryland/swim combos). We didn't have anyone that swam the 800/1000 or 1500/1650. I did the 500 as one of my typical events but that was considered "woah" distance. I swim separate from coaching - I really wish I could swim with the team but the coaching funds my pool membership & other swim stuff. So, I get some of the other coaches at the pool to look at me here and there, try to get videos of myself, and take full advantage when one of my swimmers is in the pool with me for some reason. Basically, I sort-of had an idea of what this 10x300 was supposed to be like but I wasn't sure since people mentioned it without rest or pacing. If I'm not swimming the set "right" it won't do the things it's designed to do, so I wanted to make sure I was swimming it at the right pace and intervals. It sounds like from people's responses, I had the right idea but my body wasn't cooperating. It's good to know that several fantastic swimmers on here find value in this set for the 1000. I had a few sets with great results this week but this was not one of them. It occurred to me yesterday, that if the 10x300 is truly designed to be a 30 minute set, then I might also try 10x200 or 10x250. Either would be a 30-35 minute set with the same number of rest intervals and roughly the right time swimming. But I'm intrigued by the idea of the 300's and I will be trying it again.

We have done 20x50s to the feet on :45/:50 at your desired pace, 16x100 at 1000 pace Those were both in my various sets this week but at slightly more rest (because I did the 300's short rest Tuesday & I did a set today on super short rest). I had the 20x50's on 1:00 and I did a good job holding 39.0-39.5. It was hard but do-able. I took your advice of timing to the feet but only remembered after the first four and found it interesting I was faster to the feet than to the touch. The first four were in the 40-low 41 range. The 16x100 was a bit tougher - I did those on 1:45 holding 1:24-1:25. I slipped to 1:26 on two but came back down. This is the one I did today which was my other short rest interval: 3 x Even though they weren't perfect, I was pretty pleased with those 100's. The last round was pretty burn-y but I wasn't gasping for air like I thought I would be. I think that's because over the last month I have overall been adding more aerobic stuff.