How long do you take after a big meet? I've found that I've had a problem after a big meet like nationals or in this case Pan Ams to get back in the water. Do you typically take some time off before getting back in the water or do you get right back in the Monday after?
I take huge breaks. In my Masters' career, I typically can only muster the focus to try to train and peak for 1 or 2 of the 3 seasons out of the year. Almost always that means I train pretty consistently and hard from late August through Spring Nationals, then relax in the summer time. This allows me to taper in both SCM and SCY. The one year (when I turned 45) I trained hard and raced throughout the year, I ended up with a shoulder injury that then took almost 3 more years to build back from.
Now, on my breaks, I'm still usually training, but more like a sporadic lap swimmer than a competitor.
The downside of breaks is that it takes me MUCH longer to get back into shape. As an example, I am just starting to contemplate training like a competitor again (after being lazy since Indy Nationals). I do a 3 x 300 test set to set my 'base pace' freestyle interval. When I was in 'racing shape' about 4-5 months ago, I would've averaged high 3:20s to low 3:30s on these. This past Saturday, I was 4:03s. I'll see some pretty dramatic improvements on this test set over the next two months, but it'll be a slog to get back to where I was.
I take huge breaks. In my Masters' career, I typically can only muster the focus to try to train and peak for 1 or 2 of the 3 seasons out of the year. Almost always that means I train pretty consistently and hard from late August through Spring Nationals, then relax in the summer time. This allows me to taper in both SCM and SCY. The one year (when I turned 45) I trained hard and raced throughout the year, I ended up with a shoulder injury that then took almost 3 more years to build back from.
Now, on my breaks, I'm still usually training, but more like a sporadic lap swimmer than a competitor.
The downside of breaks is that it takes me MUCH longer to get back into shape. As an example, I am just starting to contemplate training like a competitor again (after being lazy since Indy Nationals). I do a 3 x 300 test set to set my 'base pace' freestyle interval. When I was in 'racing shape' about 4-5 months ago, I would've averaged high 3:20s to low 3:30s on these. This past Saturday, I was 4:03s. I'll see some pretty dramatic improvements on this test set over the next two months, but it'll be a slog to get back to where I was.
