After the Swedish Masters Open, I shifted from training for pool events to longer open water races.
On July 11th I will swim the Swedish Open Water 5km and the following Sunday swim a 3km race along with 4500 others. I feel that my tempo and distance training has gone well. last year I swam the 3km race in 45:15. based on my pool work outs and the few lake swims I have done I think I have a chance to get down to 40:00 (goal is under 42:00 to be seeded in next yrs race). For the Friday night 5km race, I am guessing there will only be 15-25 swimmers. I am hoping not to get last, but timewise hoping to go under 1:10 (1:15 is the slowest I want to go).
anyways, this weekend I am going to race with the kids. 50-100-200 ***, and potentially the 4x100 medley relay and 4x200 B-team relay.
So last week and this week I have changed my workouts to concentrate on breaststroke technic and speed work. I do technic drills, 25 sprints, broken 100's, 200 neg and I do my work outs about 80% breaststroke.
since I will only have 3-5 races over a three day meet, I am thinking of taking advantage of the pool time and swimming 1-2 hours during the session I have no races.
Here's the question, will this two week pause from my distance training have a noticable effect? Should I be able to just go back to my distant passes in the lake on Monday?
I was hoping to get right back in and do 5km on monday, 4km on tuesday and wednesday.....thursday off day, then friday (july 4th), saturday and sunday get in a 90-120 minute swim, since my goal is to get the race done under 75min, I want to know what it feels like to swim 75 and then push myself 15-45 minutes past that point. with out pushing myself, I have done a 4km on 58:20 and a 3km approx 43:00 (but on the 3km I had a hard time concentrating in swimming and swam about 25-35m off course, side to side, almost never in a straight line.)
My last pace workout I did 10x100 start 1:40 followed by a 50 ez and then 5x200 start 3:00. was able to hold for the most part 1:12 (:35/:37) and 2:30 (1:14/1:16) granted it was a lot of rest.
just wanted to post an update about my experience with mixing up work outs.
Like I mentioned in my first post, two weeks prior to a meet I stopped my distance training and concentrated on breaststroke.
June 27-29th I swam the 50-100-200 ***. and 4x100medley relay (breaststroke leg :-)
I met all my goal times:
50 - 34.57 (under 35)
100 - 1:16.87 (under 1:17 --> converts to 1:05.80 SCY)
200 - 2:53.23 (under 2:55 --> 2:28.63)
After the meet I was back in the lake the following Monday. I only had two weeks until I was going to compete in two OW races. I felt really good about my conditioning and the last pool meet really re-charged my mental batteries. I got in 8 swims during those 2 weeks.
on Friday the 11th I swam a 5km river race. the course was 500 downstream and 500 upstream (5x). my goal was under 1:15 (1:30/100m). but since my goal time for the 3km was 42:00 (1:24/100m) I thought I could get under 1:10 in the 5km.
My time was 1:08.54 in the 5km.
My splits were something like 13:00, 26:30, 40:33, 54:30, 1:08:54
I was so happy. I purposely slowed down after 1000, thinking I was swimming too fast. after the 2km mark I felt I could hold that pace for the rest of the race. finishing time would have been 1:07, but then I got a cramp in my right left around the 2500m turn. lasted about 6-700m. around the 4500 turn I got cramps in several muscles in my left leg.
So I have already set my goal time for next year to under 1:02:30 (1:15/100m). I plan on losing another 6-8lbs and stepping up my training this fall.
On sunday the 13th I swam the 3km. my goal was go go under 42:00 so that in next years race I would be seeded. and since my slit from the 5km was 40:33 I started thinking about going under 40!
came across the finish line at 38:02. 33rd out of 3408 men (or 43rd out of 4807 total).
Next years goal is under 36, which is 1:12/100m.
I know it's not easy to compare OW races since currents and water temps can have a big part in the results, but I'm now thinking about swimming the OW race at the Worlds in Sweden 2010 along with the breaststroke events.
just wanted to post an update about my experience with mixing up work outs.
Like I mentioned in my first post, two weeks prior to a meet I stopped my distance training and concentrated on breaststroke.
June 27-29th I swam the 50-100-200 ***. and 4x100medley relay (breaststroke leg :-)
I met all my goal times:
50 - 34.57 (under 35)
100 - 1:16.87 (under 1:17 --> converts to 1:05.80 SCY)
200 - 2:53.23 (under 2:55 --> 2:28.63)
After the meet I was back in the lake the following Monday. I only had two weeks until I was going to compete in two OW races. I felt really good about my conditioning and the last pool meet really re-charged my mental batteries. I got in 8 swims during those 2 weeks.
on Friday the 11th I swam a 5km river race. the course was 500 downstream and 500 upstream (5x). my goal was under 1:15 (1:30/100m). but since my goal time for the 3km was 42:00 (1:24/100m) I thought I could get under 1:10 in the 5km.
My time was 1:08.54 in the 5km.
My splits were something like 13:00, 26:30, 40:33, 54:30, 1:08:54
I was so happy. I purposely slowed down after 1000, thinking I was swimming too fast. after the 2km mark I felt I could hold that pace for the rest of the race. finishing time would have been 1:07, but then I got a cramp in my right left around the 2500m turn. lasted about 6-700m. around the 4500 turn I got cramps in several muscles in my left leg.
So I have already set my goal time for next year to under 1:02:30 (1:15/100m). I plan on losing another 6-8lbs and stepping up my training this fall.
On sunday the 13th I swam the 3km. my goal was go go under 42:00 so that in next years race I would be seeded. and since my slit from the 5km was 40:33 I started thinking about going under 40!
came across the finish line at 38:02. 33rd out of 3408 men (or 43rd out of 4807 total).
Next years goal is under 36, which is 1:12/100m.
I know it's not easy to compare OW races since currents and water temps can have a big part in the results, but I'm now thinking about swimming the OW race at the Worlds in Sweden 2010 along with the breaststroke events.
