Looking for feedback on some time trials so far this week. Since I am fairly new at swimming I have been training for and competing at 200yd and below. But now I am trying to do longer swims and experimenting.
Yesterday I did a good warmup and then a 500yd free near maximum intensity. My time was 8:40. Then I did a cooldown 500 after several minutes recovery and swam a 9:30. This was very relaxed and I was only 50 seconds slower. That to me does not make sense as I would expect the cooldown to be considerably slower. Then today I did a 1000 and I went out very relaxed and swam an 18:10.
My question is shouldn't my high intensity be more like 20-25% faster than low intensity? I would expect to at least be under 8:00 for high intensity....no?
Is techinque rewarded that much over power in distance events?
Parents
Former Member
rtodd-Hofffam is giving you really good advice here. If you want to swim a respectable 500, you must be able to hold 100s and 200s split wise closer together. The way to do this is the interval work he is talking about. Your 50 and 100 times are pretty darn good; you just need to work toward finding that "race pace" to back them all up. And interval work with little rest is crucial to achieving this. Yes, it can be quite the price to pay when actually doing it, but the results can be magnificent.
One thing I always did when I found the 200 free to be my favorite after my backstroke career ended was this: lots of 50 repeats with little rest and trying not to allow myself to drop off more than 2 seconds. When I did, I would rest 3 minutes and start the 50 sets again. And once I got my 50s all in a row so to speak, I would spend time feeling how they felt. Then I could apply these to the 200. The same applied for my training for the 800m free at USMS Long Course Natls in 1995 in Oregon. I did piles of 400 repeats trying to keep them close together. And lots of 50s at race pace. And magical things can happen such as negative-splitting. I got to experience this and it was a power swim. One that has stayed in my memories ever since.
I won't bore you anymore, I just sometimes get over-excited in my descriptions when I try to offer advice.
And Hofffman, small world your actually being on Roatan for the day via cruise ship. Did you come to West End or did you go to West Bay?
The best to you rtodd,
donna
rtodd-Hofffam is giving you really good advice here. If you want to swim a respectable 500, you must be able to hold 100s and 200s split wise closer together. The way to do this is the interval work he is talking about. Your 50 and 100 times are pretty darn good; you just need to work toward finding that "race pace" to back them all up. And interval work with little rest is crucial to achieving this. Yes, it can be quite the price to pay when actually doing it, but the results can be magnificent.
One thing I always did when I found the 200 free to be my favorite after my backstroke career ended was this: lots of 50 repeats with little rest and trying not to allow myself to drop off more than 2 seconds. When I did, I would rest 3 minutes and start the 50 sets again. And once I got my 50s all in a row so to speak, I would spend time feeling how they felt. Then I could apply these to the 200. The same applied for my training for the 800m free at USMS Long Course Natls in 1995 in Oregon. I did piles of 400 repeats trying to keep them close together. And lots of 50s at race pace. And magical things can happen such as negative-splitting. I got to experience this and it was a power swim. One that has stayed in my memories ever since.
I won't bore you anymore, I just sometimes get over-excited in my descriptions when I try to offer advice.
And Hofffman, small world your actually being on Roatan for the day via cruise ship. Did you come to West End or did you go to West Bay?
The best to you rtodd,
donna
