How far do you swim every week - AT RACE PACE !

My team also typically does a, "Fast Friday," type set with a few different variations. Sometimes it is 50's, sometimes 100's, occasionally even 200's. But my favorite is the choice set on 5 min. For me, it gives enough time to do even 200s and still have time to recover. As a percentage of overall swimming, I'd estimate this is probably only 10%, as even on these days we'll do non-race pace warm-up/warm-down stuff. However I usually try to do doubles on these days, especially if I like the set, which could put it at 20%+ of my weekly total. We'll do some other stuff here and there that might fringe on race pace, if done properly. Some descending sets, even longer distances, getting to 90-95%+ may fall in that category. If I include these, it would probably add at least another 5-10% of my weekly total. I certainly wouldn't call the other stuff I do, "garbage yardage," by any means. We do some very helpful stroke drills, technique focus, etc. A recent set had 20 x 50 on a very tight interval (turned into touch + go for me, not race pace but sure felt like it at the time); again I think it is helpful to have a mix of many things as part of a greater training program. Plus a proper warm-up and warm-down is essential to avoid injury. And I don't see anything wrong with doing a mile for time here and there (I think we probably do that about once every 2-3 months).

My team also typically does a, "Fast Friday," type set with a few different variations. Sometimes it is 50's, sometimes 100's, occasionally even 200's. But my favorite is the choice set on 5 min. For me, it gives enough time to do even 200s and still have time to recover. As a percentage of overall swimming, I'd estimate this is probably only 10%, as even on these days we'll do non-race pace warm-up/warm-down stuff. However I usually try to do doubles on these days, especially if I like the set, which could put it at 20%+ of my weekly total. We'll do some other stuff here and there that might fringe on race pace, if done properly. Some descending sets, even longer distances, getting to 90-95%+ may fall in that category. If I include these, it would probably add at least another 5-10% of my weekly total. I certainly wouldn't call the other stuff I do, "garbage yardage," by any means. We do some very helpful stroke drills, technique focus, etc. A recent set had 20 x 50 on a very tight interval (turned into touch + go for me, not race pace but sure felt like it at the time); again I think it is helpful to have a mix of many things as part of a greater training program. Plus a proper warm-up and warm-down is essential to avoid injury. And I don't see anything wrong with doing a mile for time here and there (I think we probably do that about once every 2-3 months).