What a shame that just as D.C. weather gets really nice, I’m stuck swimming in a climate-controlled indoor pool rather than running outside, huh?
I am ducking, to get out of the way of the things all you runners are throwing in my direction right now.
Obviously, it’s 9,000 degrees in D.C., and I am loving the crap out of the fact that I have a good reason to eschew all workouts that don’t involve immersing myself in a body (or pool) of water. And now that I’ve looked at a calendar for the weeks leading up to the Luray Triathlon, which I’ll compete in as part of the Killer Honey Badgers triathlon relay team, I’ve been able to fine-tune my training plan.
Basically, I’m counting on my training for and finish of the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim on June 12 as my base here. I took a few weeks to cross-train and rest my shoulders after swimming the Bay, and am hoping the swim gods look kindly upon that rest period, followed by about a month of tune-up training. I’ve got three weekends and two weeks of training left (third week is taper week)—that should be enough to wake up my arms and remind them of all that swimming I did in May and June, right?
As previously discussed, my training will consist of three 3,000-meter swims per week, with more sprints than usual built in. My go-to sets will be:
- 1,500-meter time trial
- 3X 300 free, first six strokes of every 50 sprint
- 1,800-meter pyramid set on :15 rest: 1×50 > 1×100 > 1×150 > 1×200 > 1×250 > 1×300 > 1×250 > 1×200 > 1×150 > 1×100 > 1×50
- 4×25 sprint freestyle on :45, then 4×25 no-breath freestyle
Have you trained for the swim portion of an international-distance triathlon—or any other 1,500-meter event in calm water? If so, I’d be much indebted if you’d share your favorite speedy sets—I resist sprint/interval sets with all my heart and soul, and could really use some ideas on how to make them more fun.
One of my favorite power-building sprint sets is 14×250(200 as fast as possible-50 easy) on 5 minutes for long course meters. For open water, try 6×300 sighting for 50, rotating which 50 you sight. In other words, 50 sight-250 normal, 50 normal-50 sight-200 normal…etc
No swim tips for you…I’m just mildly jealous that you get to work out in a pool while I figure out how on earth I’m supposed to go for a “long” run Saturday morning in this crazy DC heat. It’ll be sweatacular, that’s for sure. 🙂
I love the pyramid you have outlined, I do a similar version. I’m curious as to why you sprint the first 6 strokes of every 300?
And another one I love is 10×100 descending in pairs. So the first two are on 1:50, next two on 1:45, then 1:40, 1:35, 1:30 (or whatever times get you to the last two essentially being an all-out sprint). Since you are doing a 1500 OWS, you might want to do 15×100 – that should prep you for a fast finish. Just do the math starting at the all-out pair and work backwards – or you could do them in sets of 3 if you did 15x – so you aren’t choking and vomiting on the last set. This happens to me often. 🙂
I like the set Katie mentioned or I was going to suggest trying to hold a goal race pace for a long set of 100s (10-15) with minimal rest. While I know you want to work on speed for a “shorter” event, as a former sprinter, I often have the problem of starting too fast and dying. So working on hold a hard (but sustainable) pace really helps me. And you could also drop the interval for the last few if you want to prep for a fast finish.
I totally forgot to comment, but for posterity I will leave you my current set, designed to relearn speed.
All out 50 efforts efforts, 5 second rest between each 50, 1 minute before next set done as:
400 WU (usually done as 100 each of free, catchup, alternating polo/free every 6 strokes, free) –> for me the polo strokes totally help with open water sighting and avoiding neck pain from sighting
20 x 50
200 moderate
10 x 50
200 moderate
5 x 50
WD (minimum of 100 back, 100 slow easy free focused on form)
5 x 50