I have been following a few training logs here and I note a heavy emphasis on "race-pace" training with ample recovery time. I have to assume this works well since the people posting are swimming far faster than I. so here is the question: when performing a high intensity set like that, is the emphasis on maintaining the speed, taking as much recovery time as you need to keep up the speed, or should you maintain the selected turn-over time and struggle to maintain the speed in the face of increasing fatigue? If you are finding a pace too steep to maintain the speed, do you slip to a slower pace, or should you just take a break and restart the set at the same pace after a bit of recovery? I am specifically refering to speed sets done at 90 percent of race-pace or better.
The same question should be applied to stroke technique: as I fatigue my stroke tends to break-up a bit (Ok: a lot). In training should I select paces that allow me to always maintain a "perfect" stroke, or should I push into the "red zone" where I am fatigued enough that my stroke is getting ragged? BTW: my "ragged" stroke is quite a bit faster than my technical stroke, but it really is quite "splashy". My daughter actually calls me "Dr.Splashy" when she teases me.
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Yes,they should be exhausting(take note of that you "maximize my distance" people) so don't do them 2 days in a row very often.
So I trained again today (Sunday is a great day for me to train: I get to sleep in, not worry about work, and with snow on the ground up here, no lawn to mow either). I made it sort of a recovery day: 4700 meters at a moderate pace, half backstroke, half front crawl, and evenly split between kick, pull and swim. I was actually feeling pretty good in the water, so I interjected some full-out as fast as I can swim 25s of backstroke. I would do a short set of swim, kick or pull, then throw in just two fifties: sprint down, coast back. It felt really great. I could get addicted to this stuff. I ended up doing close to 500 meters swimming as fast as I believe I can, half of that backstroke (something I have not done for nearly thirty years)
Back to harder work tomorrow. I kind of have a plan for tomorrow that goes something like this:
1200 warm-up: 4-4-4 swim kick pull.
4x100 on 2:00 going sub 1:15 (remember my goal is 4:50 or faster for the 400)
600 kick (or so) concentrating on streamline off the walls and maybe descending groups of 50s to speed.
3x100 on 2:15 going sub 1:12
600 pull (or so) concentrating on exact stroke placement, pull through and high elbow recovery. I used to work on breathing, but now I have given that up, realizing that once I get tired I am going to breath only on the right side and every time I can. Doing anything else destroys my stroke altogether.
2x100 on 2:30 going sub 1:10
600 stroke: backstroke used to be my "speciatlity", so I likely will work back. Doing this is somewhat questionable: I do not have "flags" up most of the time (I only get those when the age-group team is in) and doing back with no flags just destroys my stroke as I google around looking for the wall.
100 meters full out, hold nothing back.
200 warm-down, maybe with fins on so I can just cruise and work on stroke without any effort.
Am I on the right track for the mid-distance freestyle events? (BTW: I really could care less about sprints, so I will likely never concentrate on them for front-crawl)
Yes,they should be exhausting(take note of that you "maximize my distance" people) so don't do them 2 days in a row very often.
So I trained again today (Sunday is a great day for me to train: I get to sleep in, not worry about work, and with snow on the ground up here, no lawn to mow either). I made it sort of a recovery day: 4700 meters at a moderate pace, half backstroke, half front crawl, and evenly split between kick, pull and swim. I was actually feeling pretty good in the water, so I interjected some full-out as fast as I can swim 25s of backstroke. I would do a short set of swim, kick or pull, then throw in just two fifties: sprint down, coast back. It felt really great. I could get addicted to this stuff. I ended up doing close to 500 meters swimming as fast as I believe I can, half of that backstroke (something I have not done for nearly thirty years)
Back to harder work tomorrow. I kind of have a plan for tomorrow that goes something like this:
1200 warm-up: 4-4-4 swim kick pull.
4x100 on 2:00 going sub 1:15 (remember my goal is 4:50 or faster for the 400)
600 kick (or so) concentrating on streamline off the walls and maybe descending groups of 50s to speed.
3x100 on 2:15 going sub 1:12
600 pull (or so) concentrating on exact stroke placement, pull through and high elbow recovery. I used to work on breathing, but now I have given that up, realizing that once I get tired I am going to breath only on the right side and every time I can. Doing anything else destroys my stroke altogether.
2x100 on 2:30 going sub 1:10
600 stroke: backstroke used to be my "speciatlity", so I likely will work back. Doing this is somewhat questionable: I do not have "flags" up most of the time (I only get those when the age-group team is in) and doing back with no flags just destroys my stroke as I google around looking for the wall.
100 meters full out, hold nothing back.
200 warm-down, maybe with fins on so I can just cruise and work on stroke without any effort.
Am I on the right track for the mid-distance freestyle events? (BTW: I really could care less about sprints, so I will likely never concentrate on them for front-crawl)
