In a crazy (and fruitless) attempt to recapture my youth, I do look forward to the holiday break when inevitably we all have at least one set or one practice where our master's coach throws us a doozy set (and we may have a 2 hour practice instead of the usual 1.5 hour practice) - in an attempt to either try and get us in shape or simply have a chuckle or help us justify eating that extra piece of fruitcake.
Does anyone have any crazy/ insanely long and challenging set they would like to share?
I'll start. We had sort of a post thanksgiving distance free set that we just did:
100 FR @ 1:15
200 FR @ 2:30
300 FR @ 3:45
400 FR @ 5:00
500 FR @ 6:15
Three times through. All on 1:15 pace. (Goal is to do eventually make at 1:10 pace).
Total yardage is 4500 for the set.
Has anyone done the 100x100s? And at what pace? I'm sort of interested in trying that.
In El Paso, the loco swimmers get together for a cult swim called Los Rapidos around the holiday season. In 2000, it was 100 x 100 SCY on 1:45. Now it is 100 x 108. Takes a couple of hours. I hope we reset in 2010 to 100. There is enough time in between to tell jokes and gossip. The post event meal is a lot of fun!
I don't remember what the insane set was (and who really cares? we've obviously all done some insane sets over the years) but I remember the way we *protested* that set. It was a Sunday evening if I recall (my college men's team had practices at 5:00pm on Sundays--they always sucked) and it was a brutal and long workout. To protest, someone had the bright idea that we should all swim it in the buff. That way, our coach would get "mooned" by us all on every turn. Fortunately, the women's team was not around so modesty (and cold water) were not major hindrances. I remember it being quite "liberating" to swim in the buff. The novelty of it wore off pretty quickly in the face of the crushingly long set, but it did give us all some additional motivation.
sprinters "delight"
8 x 25's all out underwater dolphin kick on 2 minutes.
5 minute break
4 50's all out freestyle with fins 4 minutes.
5 minute break
2 100's all out freestyle no/fins on 8 minutes.
Yeah and what would be the point of this set? How would it be any better than swimming a 5500 straight?
The idea is to progressively descend - the first 100 of the 200 should be faster than the 100 just before it, and so on. I did this set at least 4 times in college and I can tell you that what actually happens is that is just becomes progressively more boring. It's not particularly hard so we'd swim through it and think about other things.
Most boring set in the universe:
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
Doing this set on 1:10 base is better than doing it on 1:15 base because it ends sooner.
Most boring set in the universe:
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
Doing this set on 1:10 base is better than doing it on 1:15 base because it ends sooner.
Yeah and what would be the point of this set? How would it be any better than swimming a 5500 straight?
