So here is my situation: I am heading home to Vancouver BC for three weeks and will hopefully be training at least every-other-day at Kits Pool.
Kits Pool is a peculiar set up; mostly a historical remanent from the early 20th century. It used to be a tidal-fed pool when I was really young: fill it up at high tide, empty the dirty water days later at low tide and start all over again. Pretty simple set up. It is now a "real" pool: clean water, lines on the bottom and training times for fitness freaks. The pool is, get this, 137.5 meters long. That's right: less than 12 lengths to the mile. The pool has just two lanes, each about twenty or more feet wide: you circle swim counter-clockwise and passing is done down the middle. There is even arrows painted on the bottom of the pool for the dull knives, and the distance from the end is marked in 25 meter increments.
vancouver.about.com/.../kitspool.htm
So, anyway, does anyone have any suggestions on work-outs? I plan on doing about 4500 to 5000 meters per session, but I might break it up into 1500 sessions with appropriate sun-tanning time on deck with my wife (to keep the marriage civil during a vacation). I really am not interested in just doing straight swims, but that is what I have done before (6 lengths swim, 6 lengths pull, 6 lengths kick then repeat). By my calculation I should be able to hold about 2:10 per 137.5 length, but I really have no idea since there are not going to be any turns on that swim to help me on my way.
Ayone good at thinking outside the box. I will try just about anything once.
That is a nice unique pool. That pool seems to be good for open water training.
Did some ladder sets, 1, 15 sec, 2 lengths, 30 sec rest, etc. See if you can do a full length of butterfly or breaststroke.
How about this:
Swim one length. Get out. Slowly walk back. Kiss Your wife.
Repeat in sets of three
To add variation, you could do these:
set #1: easy, medium, fast
set #2: build each of the three
set #3: 10 strokes fly, 20 strokes back, 10 strokes ***, 20 strokes free, till done
set #4: kick
and so forth--just keep on coming up with something different for each of the 3 x 137 meter swims per set
By my calculations, 10 such sets will be about 4,000 meters, give or take. You will have kissed your wife so many times that for the rest of the vacation she probably won't mind being ignored at the pool.
See if you can do a full length of butterfly or breaststroke.
Butterfly eh? The closest hospital is about twenty minutes by ambulance, but the lifeguards in Vancouver are some of the best in the world. And I know they have a portable defibrilator. So I might just try that (with fins on though; a good man always knows his limitations).
Seriously though, I (agree with Jim and) would throw in some drills/games for boredom alleviation, including (random) things like:
- head up swimming (water polo), say 25m head up, 25m regular
- flip turn every 20m (keep going in same direction), working on speed of rotation and accelerating from stop to fast in the 1st 5m after each flip
- changing from free to back each 5 strokes (oh Jim already suggested that)
- sculling
- play with a monofin
or any other drills of choice for technique/strength/conditioning. At least that would give you something else to think about than "where the heck is that wall??"
Fartlek training.
Or, in participle form, Fartleking. As in, "The HumanPunchingBag was Fartlekking around, ignoring his wife, feeling guilty, but otherwise enjoying himself."
By my calculations, 10 such sets will be about 4,000 meters, give or take. You will have kissed your wife so many times that for the rest of the vacation she probably won't mind being ignored at the pool.
No doubt about that. But then, of course, she will be wondering what I am feeling guilty about (she is used to being ignored when it comes to my hobbies).
I really like the idea of locomotives per length. I was kind of thinking of trying the running drill where you just randomly train as fast as you can for as long as you feel like going broken with long periods of easy, technical training (wish I could remember that bizarre German word they use for that).
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