I had never competed in the 1500M prior yesterday. In fact, a 200 is the longest event I have competed in since joining a Masters team early this summer. But for yesterday’s meet, I wanted to try something different. And that is the great thing about Masters swimming. If one day you decide you would like to try a different event, you just go for it. And that is what I did.
Leading up to the meet, I experimented with my repeat 100s in practice to get a feel for the pace I wanted to hold. I did everything right to feel confident about holding my pace and hit my goal except for my activities the day before. With both kids in sports, I spent most of Saturday bouncing between games. And to top it off I went hoop netting for lobster (got my limit of 7 :D) later that night. I eventually made it home and got to bed around 2 AM having not eaten much the whole day.
Check-in for the 1500 was at 8:00 and getting up Sunday was brutal. When my alarm went off, all I could think of was, “boy did I sabotage my race or what?” I wasn’t too worried about the lack of sleep, but I was worried about not eating much the day before. Surely I would pay a hefty price at some point during this race for that one. Heck I was already feeling sore and fatigued from hoop netting. I almost decided to skip it right then. But somehow I managed to get up and make to the pool for check in.
At the pool I had a brief conversation with my coach (who was also running the meet) about what kind of pace I wanted to keep. The first 20 laps went by great. I was feeling confidant and day dreaming of when I might crank it up a notch for an impressive strong finish. The next ten laps seemed a little tougher but still ok. And then by the 35th lap, the self-doubt hit. Mentally I started analyzing the potential impacts my lack of sleep, little food and my lack of experience in a race of this distance would have on me. The 1500 is a much tougher race than I expected and by that point, the laps were going by painfully slow. Still I would look up and see my wife and kids at the side of the pool cheering and walking along the pool side equally as excited was my coach giving me the on pace signal. I could also see a few of my lane mates from work outs hanging around the edges of the pool holding their hands up or thumbs up encouraging me on. It was truly a great feeling and the pain and self doubt seemed to back away.
I had high hopes of finishing with a strong 200 or even 300, but that quickly faded to a strong last 75, with my last 50 split being same as my first 50, a :36). And I hit my goal. I wanted to break 20 minutes (holding 1:20 hundreds) for my first 1500M and I did it with a 19:41.
I know in the big picture a 19 minute mile is nothing to write home about. But for me, yesterday, it could have been 15 minutes that I broke. Or atleast that is how I felt.
Kevin
Parents
Former Member
Yeah it seems like typical masters work outs don't really focus on distance events. And that's fine with me, I've seen what those look like and I think I'll stick with the great work outs my masters coach writes.
But I think there are things you can work on that help in distance events during a typical masters work out. I am definitely not an expert on the distance stuff, but here is what I worked during my masters work outs and most of it came from info I read from this forum.
1. I challenged myself on any repeat 100 set to hold the fastest posible pace. A few months ago finishing 10 x 100's on 1:30 SCY was a challenge by itself. Now I try to stay under 1:05 for every one and try to break a minute on the last one. And that last 100 in those sets felt very much like my last 100 in the 1500 on sunday. I was ready for that feeling.
2. I forced myself to kick every set of every work out. My kick still stinks, but just being able to kick the whole 1500M helped a great deal with my body position and efficiency.
3. I worked every turn hard in practice trying to glide past the flags. Our team has the great fortune of having Brian Goodell on it and this was something I learned swimming next to him during a saturday work out. He would just kill me with his great streamline off the wall. It was a difference of a half a body length over each turn until I started copying his form off the wall. It came down to simply keeping my head down and in a streamline position through the beginning of my stroke. That distance over 59 turns is a long way and a lot of wasted speed and energy.
I hope this helps you as much as it has me with my first 1500M.
Good luck!
Kevin
Yeah it seems like typical masters work outs don't really focus on distance events. And that's fine with me, I've seen what those look like and I think I'll stick with the great work outs my masters coach writes.
But I think there are things you can work on that help in distance events during a typical masters work out. I am definitely not an expert on the distance stuff, but here is what I worked during my masters work outs and most of it came from info I read from this forum.
1. I challenged myself on any repeat 100 set to hold the fastest posible pace. A few months ago finishing 10 x 100's on 1:30 SCY was a challenge by itself. Now I try to stay under 1:05 for every one and try to break a minute on the last one. And that last 100 in those sets felt very much like my last 100 in the 1500 on sunday. I was ready for that feeling.
2. I forced myself to kick every set of every work out. My kick still stinks, but just being able to kick the whole 1500M helped a great deal with my body position and efficiency.
3. I worked every turn hard in practice trying to glide past the flags. Our team has the great fortune of having Brian Goodell on it and this was something I learned swimming next to him during a saturday work out. He would just kill me with his great streamline off the wall. It was a difference of a half a body length over each turn until I started copying his form off the wall. It came down to simply keeping my head down and in a streamline position through the beginning of my stroke. That distance over 59 turns is a long way and a lot of wasted speed and energy.
I hope this helps you as much as it has me with my first 1500M.
Good luck!
Kevin
