In theory, there should be Workout of the Week (WOTW) posts every week. I know this. It is a bit sad that I couldn’t even maintain the appearance of commitment to weekly workout posts for a little while before lapsing into “Workout of the Every X Number of Weeks” posts. But, hey. Good news! Here’s my second installment.
As I may have mentioned in the past, my pool workouts are typically around 4000 yards with a 2000 yard main set. I’m not going to describe the warm up and other standards that I vary only slightly from workout to workout, just the main set. This is the main set I did yesterday (Monday), after a tough week and weekend of riding and running.
Swim Main Set #8:
| 400 | swim – pace, even |
| 300 | pull buoy – relaxed, technique |
| 200 | swim – pace + |
| 100 | pull buoy – relaxed, technique |
| 100 | swim – pace ++ |
| 200 | pull buoy – relaxed, technique |
| 300 | swim – pace, faster than 400 |
| 400 | pull buoy – relaxed, 1 fast stroke after turn, increase each lap |
Overview: This is one of my easier (lazier) main sets. You’ll notice that there’s a lot of “relaxed” pull buoy swimming in there. That’s by design.
Side bar – I only use a pull buoy when I’m swimming easy, or I always swim easy when I use a pull buoy. One of those two. Those things don’t do a darn thing for my stroke and slow me down plenty. It’s not like I kick a bunch when I’m not using one either. I’m amazed that there exist people who swim faster with the contraption. It is useful for swimming super lazy-easy though. I don’t seem to be able to swim quite as easy without the thing.
Rationale: I chose this workout because I arrived at Monday pretty fatigued from some good quality training from the previous week. My legs needed a break, so that’s why I swam only. However, I didn’t want to go drill myself in the pool, so I picked this moderate main set that allowed me to get in some decent paced swimming but not too much.
Details: There are no intervals. I just take 15 seconds rest between each.
The idea is to swim the first 400 nice and steady. Not easy, but not killing myself either. Actually, it should feel pretty comfortable. My benchmark is to try and hit 1:20 pace / 100 yards, which I did exactly this time around. For me, that’s good steady swimming. If I go slower than that, I’m either really tired or really slack.
The 200 pace should have me knocking a couple seconds per 100 off the pace, then the 100 targeting a 1:15 (or faster if I’m feeling particularly chipper). On the last 300, make it a strong one and most definitely faster pace than the initial 400. My execution this time around was spot on except the 200 was a couple seconds slower than ideal.
I’ll swim again later this week. Open water.
I am one of those freaks who swims faster w/ a pull buoy!! I am not the best kicker – well, I don’t kick, I am all lats, so when you add the pull buoy into the mix, I am faster!!! I can swim a 500 nearly 45″ faster w/ the pull buoy! But, most are not faster, I realize…but then there are other things to work on. FUN swim!