Apologies if this has been asked before, but I can't find it if it has.
I'm trying to create workouts and can't find an answer to this. If you are doing your set of repeat 50's, how does your body determine the difference between swimming at 100, 200, 400? It's all just 50's some of which could be at a 30 sec target time (for 100's) or at 35 sec target time for 400's for example. For instance, am I "detraining" my 100 speed by swimming the same repeat distance at a slower 400m pace?
Thanks.
I would agree with you Calvin regarding the lack of a 1 : 1 correlation. Some days you win and some days the pool wins. However, hitting your repeat times and better in practice, going longer before first fail etc gives you the confidence to make a PB.
I was laser focused on the 400 record. I remember very clearly when I was standing behind the blocks to swim the 400 at Oregon City Oregon in March of 2014. I said to myself..."just do what you do everyday in practice". I broke the record by half a second.
Believing in the training is very important. Thinking about your race strategy is very important. Practicing the race in your head over and over is very important. Occasionally I would visualize the entire race from standing behind the blocks to looking at the scoreboard at the end of the race. I would sometimes start a stop watch, close my eyes and visualize the race and stop the watch when I finished the race in my head. My time on the watch would be very close to what I eventually swam in my races.
I love this story!!! I am also giggling to myself because heading in to mesa-- I actually haven't done the work in practice that I hope for due to a vacation (chose a locale without swimming options) and general life/choosing other priorities--so I'm picturing my self talk behind the blocks as a little more like "Okay, just do what you did in some of those practices in march and maybe this will be a good starting point for the future'. I do think that USRPT gives me way more confidence than anything else I've done at low volumes. I am VERY excited to continue over the next year and see if 2020 brings more competitive results for me.
I have blended in some quasi-USRPT stuff into my workouts. I researched USRPT quite a bit, and for me, being older than 50 and in fairly good condition, USRPT done "properly" seems downright brutal. I mix in 3-5 sets per week across 6 practices. I seldom do more than one set in a workout, and I seldom get to 3 failures in a set. However, when I do a set I stick to the failure protocol at least to the second failure, and I keep the intervals short. By the second failure I'm usually feeling sick and gasping for air. I use a pace timer clipped onto my goggles so I can be very precise even on the 25 yard sets. The big benefit for me is that I have confidence that I can swim a race at the pace I'd like, *and* that going at race speed won't injure me. In addition to USRPT, I was given some advice on racing a 200 that I followed and it seemed to allow my lungs to last through the race. I broke the 200 into 50s, but instead of quitting when the pace-goal failed, I would continue to hit an aggressive interval for 6-8 repeats in order to keep my lungs stressed. My hybrid approach for 3 months prior to a big meet resulted in a drop of over 8 seconds in my 200 event and my lungs didn't fail first, I was able to swim to muscle failure. So being a bit older, I have adapted USRPT for my own purposes. Honestly, I think if I had the guts to push two sets to the 3rd failure all in one practice, I might be leaving the pool in an ambulance. USRPT done the proscribed way is very very punishing. When I hear of people doing alot of USRPT, I suspect they are either young, using longer rest intervals, or in phenomenal condition. With that said, my USRPT pacing is a very accurate predictor of my 100 and 200 race times, if you factor in the dive.
