I mean, really. Recently I've been knocking my Wednesday night swims right outta the park.
Another good one tonight, so it seems. Apparently I have mid-week mojo.
When I got to the Y, I definitely had a shorter set in mind. But when I started swimming, I realized I had much more in me than a handful of 1000s with breaks. So I wound up doing a 200 warm up and 4050 straight as the main set. (The extra 50 was a breaststroke break I took early on when I had the lane to myself.)
Booyah, I say!!
The main set took exactly 1:30 and was a big confidence booster for me. There's no way I can approximate the Iron swim in reality, but the more of these long swims I have with energy to spare at the end, the more confident I am that instinct/adrenaline/luck will get me through Moo unscathed.
At least, that is, until the bike. ; )
So...any chance you think they'd move the big race to a Wednesday night for me?
Updated: Here are my times for the session, and I'm wondering how I can ward off the downward slope of times that starts around 2000-2500 meters. Any suggestions? Swim longer distances more frequently? More endurance sets (e.g., 20 x 200)? Something else?
1000 m 20.58
500 m 10.17
500 m 10.08
500 m 11.17
500 m 11.32
500 m 11:39
500 m 11:47
Updated: Here are my times for the session, and I'm wondering how I can ward off the downward slope of times that starts around 2000-2500 meters. Any suggestions? Swim longer distances more frequently? More endurance sets (e.g., 20 x 200)? Something else?
1000 m 20.58
500 m 10.17
500 m 10.08
500 m 11.17
500 m 11.32
500 m 11:39
500 m 11:47
9 comments:
No harm in asking, eh?
that's incredible that you could do 4,000 yds as a main set.
such mental toughness!
only suggestion i would have is to do like my coach said 40x100s on 2 minutes...
so, when you swim faster in the beginning, you are going to get some rest at the wall... when, you start swimming slower later on, you'll know you need to pick it up to make the interval...
First things first! Let's start off with your assessment of "I realized I had more in me than a handful of 1000s with breaks". That is so awesome! Just think about that relative to where you were this time last year with your swim endurance. You've come really far and should be mucho proud of yourself.
In terms of your question, I have one "you should seriously consider" suggestion and one "take it or leave it" suggestion.
My "you should seriously consider" suggestion is that when you first start to feel that 2/2.5k fatigue, start swimming with a pull buoy. You'll be amazed by the difference it makes. It's all about body position when you're swimming for that long, and after 2000ish meters my guess is that your body position is starting to tilt downwards and it has a negative effect all around. At IMMoo, believe it or not, when you have a wetsuit on your body position will be more similar to what it's like when you have a pull buoy in the pool relative to no pull buoy. The buoyancy effect of the wetsuit is amazing and will make you feel like gold. On top of the buoyancy benefit, when you kick less you burn less oxygen. More oxygen = less fatigue = faster IM Able. You have all day to use your legs in Madison. Let your arms do the heavy lifting for the first 2.4.
My "take it or leave it" suggestion is to use fins. Fins also do wonders with your body position. Only negative being that you may kick harder with fins, which I'm not sure is the end goal you're looking for.
Just my humble $0.02. Happy to explain more over email if you want and give you some new ideas for other swim sets.
4050 in 90 minutes is awesome by the way! You will be blown away by how much adrenaline you have at 7am in Madison.
it looks like your times started to slow after 2000M. maybe this is where you could take a short break, and recover a bit on "endurance" days. instead of a steady 4000M, start off with 2x2000 until splits start to even out, then go for another 4000 straight and see what happens. maybe throw these long ones in every couple weeks. i would think that for IM training on "speed" days you would still want to keep sets @ 200 or 400M. keep in mind i have no credentials whatsoever in the swimming dept and you probably know more than me if you are getting in 4000M workouts....my "long" days are 2000.
Build or decend sets are favorites of mine to help keep the intensity longer in your long 2k+ sets. Also, paying careful attention to your form as you go long will help maintain some of your speed. I used to like to break long hauls into sets of 200s or 400s where I focus on breathing, body position in general, kick, pull, etc; not only does this break up the monotony, it helps get some quality work in without doing drills.
But what do I know? I haven't been in the pool in 19 days. :(
By the way, your being able to do a 4k straight on a Wednesday night is a very very good sign, both mentally and physically. Way to kick some ass!
Plenty of good suggestions there. My advice would be to pace yourself more carefully at the beginning. But I'm not doing 2.4 miles :-) You are, and you did kick ass! Woo hoo!
No suggestions from me ... I just wanted to say that this was a kick ass workout.
wow.wow.wow
What a great workout!
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