I am currently planning on going, as my "A" race next year. So... I decided to look at the AG results from 2014.
Ho - lee - shirt...
The winning swim time in my AG was 20:00 flat. I looked at the course, and it does not appear possible for it to have been downstream in both directions, considering that it started and ended at the same place. Barring miracles of physics, that is a really fast swim.
So here I sit, all proud of myself for my top-5%-of-finishers swim times this year and see that I need to cut at least 5 minutes from my time to be competitive there. (not FOP, just competitive!)
I don't even know if that's possible - for an adult-onset swimmer to cut that much time in less than a year. I just sent in my US Masters membership and I plan to start attending those practices, but is this goal even possible? And if so: what tack should I take? One of the fishies on here dropped a comment a few weeks ago, implying that getting someone to do an IM swim in under an hour is as easy as getting them to swim a 1:05 100Y. (piece of cake, right?) My question is this: do the energies get focused on intensity (i.e. 100Y repeats with decreasing time goals) or increases in net distance?
Given that my target distance only represents 20-or-so minutes of the event, I'm leaning towards increasing intensity rather than distance - still trying to fit workouts within the confines of an hour in the pool. In addition, I'm thinking that the really hard interval swims should be like cycling - once a week. As it is now, those flat-out days will wipe me out for the remainder of the day, whether they be bike or swim. It doesn't seem like a good idea to stress the system like that more frequently.
I'm currently at about 10,000Y per week, about 2000Y per workout. I've been doing a lot of kicking and one-arm drills to try to specifically address a weird pull with my left arm (when I breathe to the right, my reaching arm goes down, head goes up, ass goes down, etc.), and I've given myself six weeks to do that while I recover from the 2014 season. After that, it's back to the grindstone, but I need a plan.
What sayeth the fishies?
Ho - lee - shirt...
The winning swim time in my AG was 20:00 flat. I looked at the course, and it does not appear possible for it to have been downstream in both directions, considering that it started and ended at the same place. Barring miracles of physics, that is a really fast swim.
So here I sit, all proud of myself for my top-5%-of-finishers swim times this year and see that I need to cut at least 5 minutes from my time to be competitive there. (not FOP, just competitive!)
I don't even know if that's possible - for an adult-onset swimmer to cut that much time in less than a year. I just sent in my US Masters membership and I plan to start attending those practices, but is this goal even possible? And if so: what tack should I take? One of the fishies on here dropped a comment a few weeks ago, implying that getting someone to do an IM swim in under an hour is as easy as getting them to swim a 1:05 100Y. (piece of cake, right?) My question is this: do the energies get focused on intensity (i.e. 100Y repeats with decreasing time goals) or increases in net distance?
Given that my target distance only represents 20-or-so minutes of the event, I'm leaning towards increasing intensity rather than distance - still trying to fit workouts within the confines of an hour in the pool. In addition, I'm thinking that the really hard interval swims should be like cycling - once a week. As it is now, those flat-out days will wipe me out for the remainder of the day, whether they be bike or swim. It doesn't seem like a good idea to stress the system like that more frequently.
I'm currently at about 10,000Y per week, about 2000Y per workout. I've been doing a lot of kicking and one-arm drills to try to specifically address a weird pull with my left arm (when I breathe to the right, my reaching arm goes down, head goes up, ass goes down, etc.), and I've given myself six weeks to do that while I recover from the 2014 season. After that, it's back to the grindstone, but I need a plan.
What sayeth the fishies?