I wonder if anyone can help me. Thank you in advance!
My goal is to improve my 400 meter freestyle. My time right now is 5:45. I am almost 44 years old.
Coming off six weeks of doing only long, slow swims (2-3 miles) at 125 HR or lower, I performed a 3000 meter freestyle at maximum in an effort to discover my lactate threshold. My time was 47:29.
Right afterwards my HR was 164, so I estimate it was probably around 170 during the actual swim. Average pace was as follows:
1:35 per 100
3:10 per 200
6:20 per 400
My first 400 was, to my surprise, a 6:02. So you can see I got slower later on.
Is this a reasonable approximation if my lactate threshold?
Should I start by training below this pace, say at 140 HR, then build to eventually holding 400 meter pace?
Thank you for any advice you care to give. God bless!
Well last weekend I swam the best 400 meters of my life. That isn’t saying much, but it was 5 seconds faster than last year. The only 400 pace work I have done since April, I did during warmup for this race. All my training has been very slow (HR 112-128) or moderate (HR 148-152).
The lack of race prep showed in this one respect - my fastest 100m was my fastest 100 by 6 seconds. Clearly I should have gone out faster.
This race was much easier than last summer’s slower race. I felt like I had a lot more energy, bought I was too old to feel that way.
Got another race next month, God willing I’ll go faster!
Well last weekend I swam the best 400 meters of my life. That isn’t saying much, but it was 5 seconds faster than last year. The only 400 pace work I have done since April, I did during warmup for this race. All my training has been very slow (HR 112-128) or moderate (HR 148-152).
The lack of race prep showed in this one respect - my fastest 100m was my fastest 100 by 6 seconds. Clearly I should have gone out faster.
This race was much easier than last summer’s slower race. I felt like I had a lot more energy, bought I was too old to feel that way.
Got another race next month, God willing I’ll go faster!
