I am thinking about swimming a 1500m in an upcoming meet and am wondering what sort of sets I can swim to see what pace I can hold for that distance. Tonight we had a 12x100 set on 1:50 and I expanded it to 15x100 and came in on 1:35 on average. A coach I was talking to recently said that what one could do with 15s rest in a set like that you could likely do in a race at a meet. I am not quite so sure, 15s seems like a lot of rest. On the other hand the set wasn't that hard to complete and I had plenty left at the end. I was just concentrating on technique and getting 5m off every wall. If I actually held 1:35 that would be 23:45, which would be two minutes faster than the last time I swam it, two years ago, and I would feel really good about that, I was actually just aiming to go under 24:30, which would be a minute off my PB, which I did three years ago. It would also beat my secret nemesis' time... :D Which is the only reason for swimming such an insanely long race!
Any other suggested interval sets to gauge likely meet time? The thing that really gets me is having to swim without the pace clock and having to do 60 lengths before finding out if I hit my goal pace or not! Every 1 sec variance per 50m translates to 30s over 1500, which is both exciting and scary!
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Former Member
Lindsay,
I recommend you to test your 1500 in the workout before the meet.
This will help you to make a realistic race plan. If you are 2 minutes better than your latest meet, you can adjust your speed accordingly. 2 minutes faster means nearly 8% improvement which is great but very hard to achieve:blah: . If you get tired after a couple of laps, you will understand that in the race you should start slower. If you don't want to test the full 1500, you might do what Donna suggested. I used to try 4X400 or 5X400 with a RI of 15-20 sec in the workouts and in the 1500 race, I swam nearly the same speed.
Long and complete strokes, strong and fast flip-turns, very deep and active breathing and a steady speed is what you need. If your kick is not so strong, you might try one lap strong (maybe 6 beat), one lap weak (3 beat) kicking. Worst case scenario is weak kicking all the laps which will shorten your strokes.
Anyway, have fun:groovy:
Lindsay,
I recommend you to test your 1500 in the workout before the meet.
This will help you to make a realistic race plan. If you are 2 minutes better than your latest meet, you can adjust your speed accordingly. 2 minutes faster means nearly 8% improvement which is great but very hard to achieve:blah: . If you get tired after a couple of laps, you will understand that in the race you should start slower. If you don't want to test the full 1500, you might do what Donna suggested. I used to try 4X400 or 5X400 with a RI of 15-20 sec in the workouts and in the 1500 race, I swam nearly the same speed.
Long and complete strokes, strong and fast flip-turns, very deep and active breathing and a steady speed is what you need. If your kick is not so strong, you might try one lap strong (maybe 6 beat), one lap weak (3 beat) kicking. Worst case scenario is weak kicking all the laps which will shorten your strokes.
Anyway, have fun:groovy:
