scooter23 wrote:
Have you done a lot of CSS work garyp? I did a test several weekends ago. After a normal warmup and some build intervals, I swam 400y in 5:05. Then, after a 45s rest, a 100y recovery swim in 1:17 followed by a 1m45s rest, I swam the 200 in 2:29. Plugging in the numbers got me to a 19.5s interval rate to put on the tempo trainer. So today, I went to the pool and proceeded to swim 10x200s with a 20s rest interval (basically one iteration of the tempo trainer). However, after four 200s, I was knackered and unable to sustain that pace on the fifth 200. A little bit disappointed in this first attempt. Do you regularly try to complete the CSS sets, 200s, 400s or longer distances? Weekly? I know that is what some swimsmooth recommends.
Your setting should be 18.75s. Is that what you would program in to swim these sets? I will probably go out next week and attempt to increase the time to maybe 20 flat to see how that works.
I've personally only used the CSS test as a fitness benchmark, never a foundation for a training plan. Until recently, most of my training was focused on races 500 yards and shorter, so most of my training was at a pace considerably faster than my tested CSS. This winter I've been very focused on mile pace training so, not surprisingly, my most recent CSS test results aligned tightly with the "goal pace" I've been training at.
Honestly, I think 10x200 on 20 seconds rest at CSS is a pretty aggressive set. I don't do 200's at my CSS/mile-goal-pace, and doubt I could do 10 consecutive on 20 seconds rest. I started the season doing 20-25 x 100, then went to 16-20 x 125, and more recently 12-16 x 150; all on ~20 seconds rest. Maybe if I backed off the target pace 1-2 seconds per hundred, I might make 10x200. Which brings up the point that the CSS test isn't exact, and that even at sustained mile pace (which CSS is supposed to estimate), 1 second/100 can still be a pretty big difference in demand.
I raced a 1650 yesterday for the second time in a month, and again came in ~ 1 second/100 slower than my goal pace/CSS Test pace. First time I just swam by perceived effort, consistently posted mostly low-mid 38's for 50 splits, and, with the always-faster opening 100 and a strong finishing 100, ended up with a 1:15.99./100 average. Yesterday, I could see my splits on the scoreboard every 50 so I was trying to hold 37.50's. I fell off somewhere around 700, and really died around the 1000 mark. I ended up finishing with a bunch of 50's in the mid-39's, and averaging 1:16.32/100 for the whole race. For me, the CSS test seems more like an indicator of 800/1000 race pace than 1500/1650/mile.
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