Ultra Short Training At Race Pace

Curious about the successes and/or disappointments of those who used USRPT this season and competed in the SCY Masters Nationals. I've been following this thread since January and was debating chiming in, but since you asked... For 2013 nats I followed an 8 month training plan that I developed based on how I trained growing up. I coach our masters team and stay and swim on my own after. I trained 4x a week for 4 months and 5x a week for 4 months with a solid mix of endurance, IM, stroke and sprint training and a 2 week taper. I had a great meet with 5 masters bests, including my times from before having kids. I was 36. This year I was not able to make it to California, so I focused on our state meet in 2 of the events I did in 2013 and started 4x a week training in January, basically 3 months out. I did usrpt in fly or *** for 2 or 3 of those practices, HIT for one and a free set one day (when I would get a chance to swim with the team while the other coach led practice.) The main thing I did was only swim fly and *** at 100 race pace or faster for those 3 months, following the 25's USRPT training I took from this thread. No IM sets, no stroke drills or easy swimming and nothing longer than a 50 in either stroke on HIT days. Results: 2013 100 *** 1:14.33 100 fly 1:07.28 2014 100 *** 1:14.94 100 fly 1:08.13 * The 100 fly in 2014 was only 10 minutes after my 50 free, which was a best since college for me as well. But I definitely felt the piano drop on my back in the last 10 yards of the fly! :) Overall, I loved the training. It was much easier to do on my own than trying to slug through a distance set, and I usually left more exhausted doing USRPT than on days when I trained free sets with the team. I also think I was just getting the swing of it at 3 months, and would like to do it longer and see what happens. I didn't think I would get that close to my 2013 times after the way I trained that year, so I was really happy with the times and think the "dabbling in USRPT" that I did was fully responsible for a good State meet this year.

Curious about the successes and/or disappointments of those who used USRPT this season and competed in the SCY Masters Nationals. I've been following this thread since January and was debating chiming in, but since you asked... For 2013 nats I followed an 8 month training plan that I developed based on how I trained growing up. I coach our masters team and stay and swim on my own after. I trained 4x a week for 4 months and 5x a week for 4 months with a solid mix of endurance, IM, stroke and sprint training and a 2 week taper. I had a great meet with 5 masters bests, including my times from before having kids. I was 36. This year I was not able to make it to California, so I focused on our state meet in 2 of the events I did in 2013 and started 4x a week training in January, basically 3 months out. I did usrpt in fly or *** for 2 or 3 of those practices, HIT for one and a free set one day (when I would get a chance to swim with the team while the other coach led practice.) The main thing I did was only swim fly and *** at 100 race pace or faster for those 3 months, following the 25's USRPT training I took from this thread. No IM sets, no stroke drills or easy swimming and nothing longer than a 50 in either stroke on HIT days. Results: 2013 100 *** 1:14.33 100 fly 1:07.28 2014 100 *** 1:14.94 100 fly 1:08.13 * The 100 fly in 2014 was only 10 minutes after my 50 free, which was a best since college for me as well. But I definitely felt the piano drop on my back in the last 10 yards of the fly! :) Overall, I loved the training. It was much easier to do on my own than trying to slug through a distance set, and I usually left more exhausted doing USRPT than on days when I trained free sets with the team. I also think I was just getting the swing of it at 3 months, and would like to do it longer and see what happens. I didn't think I would get that close to my 2013 times after the way I trained that year, so I was really happy with the times and think the "dabbling in USRPT" that I did was fully responsible for a good State meet this year.