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!
Perhaps I was a little overtrained going into this training cycle, but I am not sure. However, I do believe that this training is raising my lactate threshold, allowing me to swim faster, at a higher HR, without being forced to tap fully into the anaerobic system. In essence, more of my energy comes from the aerobic system than the anaerobic system. This cuts down on blood lactate and all the other things that slow you down.
It would probably be more illustrative to look at a swimmer much faster than me, lol. But hat is my theory for now as to what is happening.
Perhaps I was a little overtrained going into this training cycle, but I am not sure. However, I do believe that this training is raising my lactate threshold, allowing me to swim faster, at a higher HR, without being forced to tap fully into the anaerobic system. In essence, more of my energy comes from the aerobic system than the anaerobic system. This cuts down on blood lactate and all the other things that slow you down.
It would probably be more illustrative to look at a swimmer much faster than me, lol. But hat is my theory for now as to what is happening.
