So, I've been training with a local Masters program a bit. First a couple of times a month, just to get some water time in front of a coach. The girl who runs it is a friend, she's a hard core tri-athlete, and she has given me some tips. However, she had to pull back, and they had one of the age group coaches start doing the lunch time workouts. New coach is wonderful, and has given me tons of tips. She's a pool swimmer, not a tri-athlete, not an open water swimmer. So more in line with what I want to do.
Normal "solo" pool at the local gym has had the heater broken for a bit. And I normally can't make any of the morning workouts, as I have to get my son around to school and his swim practice on Saturdays. Well, there was an afternoon meet on Saturday, which left me open to the morning Masters practice, so I went. The normal (tri) coach was in Austin this week, so a different age group coach was covering. I don't know the morning crowd, but I had guessed it probably had some non-tri swimmers there. Turned out it was a light crowd, and I knew everyone. One older pool swimmer (who doesn't rest to recover any.....EVER......so she swims more like the tri folks), the rest were folks who often do lunch workouts. Coach said they had done sprint work the day before. Okay, great, this should probably be fast work, intervals, rest. Kind of stuff I want/need. She said that day would be more distance focused. Okay, but still, NP, I try to get a bit longer, less intense workouts in on Saturdays, so cool.
Anyway. Warm up, typical 800 meters of swimming, kicking, pulling. Pre-set had some breathing work, a couple of descend 1-4 50 sets. Did my fastest reps fly just to keep working it. Another 1000M or so. Then we get to the main set. Here is how it read:
6X50 (swim slightly faster than 100/2 pace) on 1:00-1:20
300 FAST
easy 50
2x150 (on your 100 pace) on 2:15-3:00
300 FAST
easy 50
3x100 (on your 100 pace) on 1:20-2:00
300 FAST
So I'm thinking to myself "holy $#!+, I can't hold faster than my 100 pace for 6 reps with that little rest. Well, I'll give it my best." I do one rep, then the coach was by my lane, so I asked her: "Hey Kayla.....what in the heck does 300 FAST mean? 300 isn't a "fast" distance, especially this many of them in a main set." She says "your 100 pace." To which I respond "How on Earth am I supposed to hold my 100 pace for 300 meters!? I can't hold my 100 pace for a 200, and you want me to hold it for 300?" She says, "no, your 100 PACE." Again.....I can't hold my 100 pace that long, I'll die!
Eventually, we sort out that when she says my 100 pace, she means what I would call my "all day pace." Since triathletes talk about the pace they hold "per 100," apparently they call their distance swimming pace their "100 pace." And FWIW, the faster of the triathletes are about 20 seconds per 100 off my pace. And I also can't just go out and swim my all day pace. Assuming SCY to SCM times are about 10% faster, my 50's were coming in around 12 seconds faster (on a per 100 basis, so 6 on the 50), 100's and 150's were about 6 seconds faster, and the 300's were 1-2 seconds faster.
At any rate, I found the whole interaction to be pretty humorous. Anyone else ever find themself in a similar situation (apologies if you get "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie stuck in your head now)?
