Hi all,
i'm looking for some workouts to work towards swimming as close as possible to 4000 for the 1 hr postal. I swim 3000-4000 per session with about 1 session per week in masters.
I did a 1000yd trial yesterday at the end of a workout and long weekend of workouts (i'm also a runner) and hit 15:40 - about 40 secs slower than my goal and i felt like i was sinking futher and further to the bottom of the pool with every lap.
I've been working towards locking into 1:30 per 100 pace with 100s on the 1:40, 200s on the 3:15, 250s on the 4:00. Is this the right approach to take? Anyone have sets i should be shooting for?
Thanks
My team does a lot of sets where we swim at our intended hour pace. For example, we'll do sets of 200s or 300s where the idea is to hold your hour pace. We'll also have days where we do longer swims (like an 800, 1000 or 1500) and the goal remains the same (maintain the hour swim pace). It's good to get in the habit of swimming at the speed you want to maintain for the hour. We even do some timed swims to get us in the right habits, such as 20 or 30 minute swims where the idea it to swim a distance equal to 1/3 or 1/2 of your goal distance for the hour swim.
At the same time, we also do a lot of endurance sets, such as cranking out 100s or 200s on short rest (swum faster than hour swim pace).
I've only done the hour swim once before so I don't have a lot of experience. I managed to swim a distance 5 yards shy of the distance I would have swum had I maintained my intended pace (which I'd say is hitting it pretty close to the mark). I will say that the first few hundred yards were probably swum faster than my intended pace, but then I had about a thousand or so where I swam SLOWER than my intended pace (this was a very bleak time. After that, I finally got in the groove and started to go a little faster and catch up.
The hour swim is a tough event. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I do plan to swim it...
My team does a lot of sets where we swim at our intended hour pace. For example, we'll do sets of 200s or 300s where the idea is to hold your hour pace. We'll also have days where we do longer swims (like an 800, 1000 or 1500) and the goal remains the same (maintain the hour swim pace). It's good to get in the habit of swimming at the speed you want to maintain for the hour. We even do some timed swims to get us in the right habits, such as 20 or 30 minute swims where the idea it to swim a distance equal to 1/3 or 1/2 of your goal distance for the hour swim.
At the same time, we also do a lot of endurance sets, such as cranking out 100s or 200s on short rest (swum faster than hour swim pace).
I've only done the hour swim once before so I don't have a lot of experience. I managed to swim a distance 5 yards shy of the distance I would have swum had I maintained my intended pace (which I'd say is hitting it pretty close to the mark). I will say that the first few hundred yards were probably swum faster than my intended pace, but then I had about a thousand or so where I swam SLOWER than my intended pace (this was a very bleak time. After that, I finally got in the groove and started to go a little faster and catch up.
The hour swim is a tough event. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I do plan to swim it...
