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Swim Pacing?

grosso27grosso27
in General Training Discussions

Apologies in advance for a question I should *probably* know the answer to, but here goes...

I am jumping from 27th week of OS right into week 4 of 12 Int. HIM plan.

So, swimming a new animal to me.  Even more so with swimming being in my training plan.  Apparently I have to hit the pool today.

What should pacing look like for the following workout?

  Todays Workout  

Swim

60 Minutes

Speed + Endurance

WU: 500 yds/m

MS1: 3 x 100 (20 ) Descend 3 x 100 (15 ) Descend 3 x 100 (10 ) Descend Set Total: 900

MS2: 4 x 50 (20 ) Descend 4 x 50 (15 ) Descend 4 x 50 (10 ) Descend Set Total: 600

MS3: 400 any pace you like, counting strokes and focusing on form.

CD: 100 easy

Total: ~2500yds/m

Comments

  • jneedelljneedell
    Ed,
    Interesting. If you had time I would have you do a 1000 TT. However you could just take your warm up and assume that is an easy pace. Repeatable without big effort and try to go 10 sec per 100 faster for the last of the descending set until you know your pace better and do some races or testing. Sorry for not being able to give you a better answer but it looks like you need it for today. This will keep you focused on technique which is what you should be doing anyway!

    The back up for the answer is as follows and unfortunately it is specific to me. I swim a mile in about 24:30. I swim a 1000 in about 14:30-15:00. I just did a swim meet and did a 500 in 7:09. My warm up is usually 7:30 - 8:00 for the 500. If my typical warm up is 7:45 and I swam a 7:09 for 20 laps (500) for 36 seconds benefit that is almost 2 seconds better per lap or 8 seconds per 100. Also my fastest 100 is 1:05 and the 500 average in a race is 1:25. So anyway the difference between all out for me and Anaerobic Threshold in the swim is about 20 seconds. When descending I do 1:30, 1:25, 1:20. Usually I have trouble holding the last set at 1:20 because the rest is only 10 seconds. For the 50's I do 1:00 including rest aiming for 36, 34, 32 again the 32's are tough.

    Hope that is not too confusing but helps and certainly hope others have input before you do the workout. I still haven't read the swim e-book yet and I am sure it is in there.
    Thanks,
    JN
  • grosso27grosso27

    Thanks for the thoughts.  I'll have to read up on the swim eBook when I can.

  • mgraffeomgraffeo
    Ed, just to put it another way, the workout would look like this by RPE

    warm up

    100 reasonably hard (20)
    100 a little harder (20)
    100 pretty hard, but not sprinting (20)

    100 reasonably hard (15)
    100 a little harder (15)
    100 pretty hard, but not sprinting (15)

    100 reasonably hard (10)
    100 a little harder (10)
    100 pretty hard, but not sprinting (10)

    then
    50 pretty hard (20)
    50 a little harder than that (20)
    50 wow, I didn't know I could go this hard (20)
    50 as if I were racing a 50 (20)

    repeat for (15)'s and (10)'s.

    Swim splits are really only interesting after you're done, since you have no feedback while you're swimming, so go based on how hard it feels like you're working, and notice what the clock says at the end of the intervals.

    Mike
  • grosso27grosso27

    Well said.  I'm going to print that out & bring it to the pool.

    You really didn't need to type all that out.  Thanks much for the help.

  • MattAaronsonMattAaronson
    I did that workout yesterday and I guess I did it incorrectly since I did 3x100 then 20 seconds rest, then 3x100 followed by 15 seconds rest, then 3x100. I didn't realize you could rest after each 100. Crap, that would have been nice. Of course my "descend" didn't work out too well either, with increasing RPE on each 100 but really only 1-2 seconds in speed difference...
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