I agree that more quality and lower yardage can be better and produce good to great results in shorter events. I think it can be applied to the 500-1650/400-1500 to some extent, but that some measure of pounding out some serious pace work is required for those distances. Given time constraints now (early 40s), a GREAT week of training is around 20,000 yards. When I did my best 1500 time back in my youth, 20K could be a single day of training ... not every day, but weeks were more in the 70,000 to 90,000 meter range during the intense parts of training. I don't think I'd need to go that high now, but I think I'd need to be training 50K a week consistently to contemplate times that approached my best HS & college 1000 and 1650 times.
Well, I just made top 10 in the 400 IM and just missed it in the 400 free (only swam it once at an age group meet). Due to ankle surgery, I didn't do the 800 or higher this summer. I'm not a sprinter by any means and my distance is getting faster as I get older and get wiser and more targeted training. I usually only do about 17k in a week and that's a full week. But I think as I've gotten older, my training has gotten wiser. I do dry land which I didn't do when I was younger and I do ART stretching now (getting it done in about an hour in fact since I have a meet tomorrow). Plus our team has a nutrition program that we follow. So maybe it can be done now with the new techniques in training that weren't around when Janet was younger without her having to pound out the higher yardage.
I agree that more quality and lower yardage can be better and produce good to great results in shorter events. I think it can be applied to the 500-1650/400-1500 to some extent, but that some measure of pounding out some serious pace work is required for those distances. Given time constraints now (early 40s), a GREAT week of training is around 20,000 yards. When I did my best 1500 time back in my youth, 20K could be a single day of training ... not every day, but weeks were more in the 70,000 to 90,000 meter range during the intense parts of training. I don't think I'd need to go that high now, but I think I'd need to be training 50K a week consistently to contemplate times that approached my best HS & college 1000 and 1650 times.
Well, I just made top 10 in the 400 IM and just missed it in the 400 free (only swam it once at an age group meet). Due to ankle surgery, I didn't do the 800 or higher this summer. I'm not a sprinter by any means and my distance is getting faster as I get older and get wiser and more targeted training. I usually only do about 17k in a week and that's a full week. But I think as I've gotten older, my training has gotten wiser. I do dry land which I didn't do when I was younger and I do ART stretching now (getting it done in about an hour in fact since I have a meet tomorrow). Plus our team has a nutrition program that we follow. So maybe it can be done now with the new techniques in training that weren't around when Janet was younger without her having to pound out the higher yardage.
