return to the pool - advice

First of all, I am in awe of your 21.8. Very cool. Since you did a 21.8 in the past I am pretty sure that you know how to train, but it seems like you jumped into the pool, did what you thought should be an easy sprint workout, found it to be a whole lot tougher than you expected and now are a bit lost as to what to do. I am not a coach, but over the past few years I have nursed myself back from pretty bad condition after an illness. Perhaps I can say some things that will help. Think about your goals. Measure what you can do now. Then think about when you want to acheive your goals and about HOW you plan to acheive them. "I want to swim 21.8 again" could be a goal, but I recommend you set a more detailed and specific plan with some intermediate goals along the way. Maybe your big goal is; "I want to swim 21.8 in July 2011 at the league championships" or something similar. A week or two from now, after you get past your current DOMS and get a little feel for the water back, you warm up and throw down a 50. Let's suppose for the sake of agrument that you go 26.0. Based on that, maybe you can target 23-high by December, 22-high by late spring and then hit 21.8 fully rested and tapered in July. So you plan three major cycles of training with a focus meet at the end of each. Maybe there is a local meet in late autumn where you can be pretty sure a 23-high will get you into the top 3, so there will be a "reward" for reaching your first goal. Then maybe you can find a regional meet in late spring where a 22-high will get you into the medals, so there is a reward for reaching that goal too. By then you will be really burning to get the 21.8 to crush everyone in your league... The above is a purely hypothetical example. I'd bet you still have some speed, and at 22 y.o. you will probably come around remarkably fast. (It will only feel like a long time.) In any case, you get the idea, small realistic incremental goals with a reward for getting to them. I find the Masters motivational time standards to be great for goal setting: U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums - View Single Post - Masters Motivational Times I use them for both practice and meet goals. (Lower standards for practice of course:) The NQTs are also good: (Reach goals for me) Qualifying for Nationals - U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums I don't know about you, but I don't find, "I finally swam x time" to be anywhere near as motivating as, "I finally made AA time" or, I finally made NQT in my event" or, "I probably need x time to win at the upcoming meet." It sounds like you have health-and-fitness goals as well as swimming goals. That's great and that's a big part of Masters swimming. I realize that you are a sprinter and that you were *trying* to start with a relatively easy workout, but I suggest that mixing different distances and different strokes into your workouts, including some longish slowish stuff right now when you are just starting up, and early in your training cycles, will contribute to better overall health and fitness and make the workouts more varied and interesting. The advise of making the middle of your workout and the middle of each swim higher intensity, then gradually increasing the duration of higher intensity sound very good. I may try that after my end-of-summer break. Perhaps the best advise I can give to to read and follow Ande's SFF tips" U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums - View Single Post - Ande's Swimming Tips: Swimming Faster Faster You might benefit a lot from tip #51. It could get very discouraging trying to regain a time you swam when you were in the bst shape of your life. You might even want to pick as a second event an event that you didn't swim before. This way you can enjoy every new personal best, without negative thoughts of "I'm STILL not back to 21.8" constantly discouraging you. Good luck! and keep us updated on your progress.

First of all, I am in awe of your 21.8. Very cool. Since you did a 21.8 in the past I am pretty sure that you know how to train, but it seems like you jumped into the pool, did what you thought should be an easy sprint workout, found it to be a whole lot tougher than you expected and now are a bit lost as to what to do. I am not a coach, but over the past few years I have nursed myself back from pretty bad condition after an illness. Perhaps I can say some things that will help. Think about your goals. Measure what you can do now. Then think about when you want to acheive your goals and about HOW you plan to acheive them. "I want to swim 21.8 again" could be a goal, but I recommend you set a more detailed and specific plan with some intermediate goals along the way. Maybe your big goal is; "I want to swim 21.8 in July 2011 at the league championships" or something similar. A week or two from now, after you get past your current DOMS and get a little feel for the water back, you warm up and throw down a 50. Let's suppose for the sake of agrument that you go 26.0. Based on that, maybe you can target 23-high by December, 22-high by late spring and then hit 21.8 fully rested and tapered in July. So you plan three major cycles of training with a focus meet at the end of each. Maybe there is a local meet in late autumn where you can be pretty sure a 23-high will get you into the top 3, so there will be a "reward" for reaching your first goal. Then maybe you can find a regional meet in late spring where a 22-high will get you into the medals, so there is a reward for reaching that goal too. By then you will be really burning to get the 21.8 to crush everyone in your league... The above is a purely hypothetical example. I'd bet you still have some speed, and at 22 y.o. you will probably come around remarkably fast. (It will only feel like a long time.) In any case, you get the idea, small realistic incremental goals with a reward for getting to them. I find the Masters motivational time standards to be great for goal setting: U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums - View Single Post - Masters Motivational Times I use them for both practice and meet goals. (Lower standards for practice of course:) The NQTs are also good: (Reach goals for me) Qualifying for Nationals - U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums I don't know about you, but I don't find, "I finally swam x time" to be anywhere near as motivating as, "I finally made AA time" or, I finally made NQT in my event" or, "I probably need x time to win at the upcoming meet." It sounds like you have health-and-fitness goals as well as swimming goals. That's great and that's a big part of Masters swimming. I realize that you are a sprinter and that you were *trying* to start with a relatively easy workout, but I suggest that mixing different distances and different strokes into your workouts, including some longish slowish stuff right now when you are just starting up, and early in your training cycles, will contribute to better overall health and fitness and make the workouts more varied and interesting. The advise of making the middle of your workout and the middle of each swim higher intensity, then gradually increasing the duration of higher intensity sound very good. I may try that after my end-of-summer break. Perhaps the best advise I can give to to read and follow Ande's SFF tips" U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums - View Single Post - Ande's Swimming Tips: Swimming Faster Faster You might benefit a lot from tip #51. It could get very discouraging trying to regain a time you swam when you were in the bst shape of your life. You might even want to pick as a second event an event that you didn't swim before. This way you can enjoy every new personal best, without negative thoughts of "I'm STILL not back to 21.8" constantly discouraging you. Good luck! and keep us updated on your progress.