My goal is to swim a mile, FAST, by May/June of 09.
I am in the pool 3 - 4 times a week some days I just do drills, mainly finger drag and catch up, (50m at a time) some days I do intervals a few 4x100 with 20 - 30 seconds rest in between, sometimes a warm up with drills and 10x100m swim and a cool down or a ladder workout up to 150m and back down.
I'm wondering if I am on the right track to reach my goal. My form / breathing has gotten much better from the tips I got here and from stroke clinics. But I'm not sure if I am on the right track.
hofffam
Very Active Member
Dan
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 718
Re: Training Plan Question
Disclaimer - I am not a distance swimmer nor do I enjoy long events.
But based on what you wrote - you are not training properly for a FAST mile.
Of course it would help if you said what a FAST mile is to you. Is that a 20 minute mile? 25 minutes? 18 minutes?
20 minutes might be a typical fast mile time for a Masters swimmer. But look on this site for the results/times at Nationals for your age group to decide what FAST might be.
If your longest set is 10x100M you are way short of the training you need for aerobic development.
Others here are probably better sources for advice. But in general I think the main portion of your workout should be at least 30-45 minutes of solid aerobic work. I would swim single sets that take at least 20 minutes to complete. 15 x 100 swum upper moderate with 10 secs rest between repeats could take 20 minutes. Or some sets like 10 x 200 or 5 x 500 - all swum at a pace that puts your heart rate in an aerobic training range. Occasionally you should swim long repeats like 2 x 1000 so you get experienced swimming non-stop for longer periods of time.
Short course swimming requires lots of turns - so you need to get used to efficient flip turns. Your breathing needs to be smooth and efficient. And you need a kick that neither tires you or causes your legs to drag.
__________________
From the Rolling Stones "Mother's Little Helper" - "What a drag it is getting old....."
You need to do longer swims. No set of 100 yard/meter repeats will prepare you well for a mile. I think it's useful to do sets where you're mixing some longer aerobic swimming (something like 300s or 400s) and some shorter, faster swimming (50s, 75s, 100s, etc.). I agree with Dan about doing long main sets. In my workouts the main set is often 3,000 yards or so. Sets like 10x100 have their place, but you need to mix it up.
one of the things I liked doing this spring before my 3000m and 5000m races where pyrimads.
swim 50-100-150-200-250-300-350-400-350......-50
or longer sets
100-200-300-400-500-400-.....100
and I would try to hold the same 50 split for all the distances, or same 100 split.
for me it was holding 1:20. so when I got to the 500 I tried to swim it 6:40. when I was able to hold my split times, then i started playing with speed changes. going up holding 1:20 and then coming back down trying to swim 1:15. I didn't have a start time for each distance, but I would take a rest that allowed me to get a good start point on the clock: 0, 15, 20, 30, 40, 45 so sometimes the rest of 8 sec, sometimes 13 seconds.
I also liked doing 5x200 arm the first three holding even splits. the 4th one negative and the last max.
Thanks....Guess I'll incorporate longer as I go. This is my first season swimming and I'm still trying to figure things out.
Keep it up! One thing I didn't mention is you should do lots of swimming with short rest. For example if you can hold 1:25 on your set of 10x100, try to do them on a 1:30 sendoff. This will really help with your aerobic conditioning and ability to hold a consistent pace.
I'm back...and since this thing won't allow me to post a new thread I am posting here!
I took the advice I got here and it's helped out a lot. I swim drills Mon and Fri 4x75 of different things, about an hour to an hour and a half worth. I do a distance workout on Wed I'm up to 4x400 with (60 - 90s intervals) or a pyramid up to 400m (90s on the way up and 60s on the way down).
I've recently started doing a lil speed work on the longer days where i work hard the first 25 to 50m and then settle into my normal cruising pace.
I don't have a swimming background so I don't really know what I'm doing in the pool. So my question is am I on the right track to swim a mile or more quickly (I really don't know what quick means for this either :)) by Sept / Oct? What other kind of workouts should i be looking at?
How quick is quick?? In other words, what is your goal with regard to time?
I don't usually time things in the pool so I don't know how fast or slow I'm going. My my swim split for my last race was 9.29 for .45 miles. There was a run of about 300m before the timing mat though. So the actual swim time was a little faster. That was my first open water tri.
