I think tomorrow I will give the 20x50 alternating free and fly on 60 seconds a try. I think I should be able to hold 50-43 seconds for the free and 55-50 for the fly depending on how hard I want to go. I would probably just leave on 60 and come in at whatever I come in at.

Seriously though it sounds like you would be down in the 13 minute range pretty easily? 13:20 would be averaging 40 seconds?

No way unless I was looking to completely bury myself. Most of those fly 50s were ~40s and the free 38s plus 20s recovery. I think at best I would be 1-2 mins slower than that going straight through. I haven't yet mastered the art of doing fly at a cruise pace that I can maintain for any amount of time.

Based on a few 1:35ish fly-free 100's, I "THOUGHT" it should be possible to sustain 1:45 for the full 1000m, but I was just over 1:50. AnnaS told me to work on my 50 speed and 100 speed, but my technique is so bad, there is not that much delta between my all out and 'hard cruise". Also because of my disk/nerve issue, when I rotate to my left, there is a subtle (but I think drag inducing) pause in my stoke to get around that point in the rotation where I can get a leg spasm (imagine an uncontrollable soccer calf cramp and trying to avoid if every time your rotate left....but its better when it happens in the water vs running where I would twist my ankle landing or on the bike when my leg wants to involuntarily come unlipped). It's actually why I have been doing so much fly....it's cause there is no lumbar spine rotation at any point in the stroke.

I did get back into some breast stroke and back stroke yesterday and collar bone did not go on strike, so good news.

but my technique is so bad, there is not that much delta between my all out and 'hard cruise"

You probably aren't doing your fly stroke any good by doing those distance flys. Because fly is so difficult, most people start putting too much glide at the top of their stroke and it gets ugly since fly is so much about rhythm.

Sorry, I should say my freestyle is really bad.....31 years of bad stroke mechanics coupled with developing bad habits due to some pretty bad neck, shoulder and pelvic injuries. I was told by a few coaches who have seen me that my fly is actually quite good, and they are wondering why my free is so bad. I said, "I just learned fly this year from youtube and ST, so I only have 1 year of bad habits, on free, I have too many bad decades to undo".....does that make sense. I agree that fly is about rythm. My strength for fly is 3 decades of skate skiing and having above average core strength/endurance/utilization compared to your average adult onset swimmer...under a bit of softness you can still see a six pack at 51. Almost better than at 19. If my pool allowed video, I'd post, but it is banned at city of Ottawa pools :-(

ha, I tend toward the more monotonous, the better.
6.3 mi run 50:39
1600 yd swim as 14 x 100 on 1:25 avg 1:15 and a 200 yd cooldown

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

During today's 4000m swim, my main 2 sets were

5x200m IM as (50-25-25-100) on 4:10 min.....I will keep this structure and build up to 50-50-50-50

then I modified your set and did

5x100 fly-free on 2 min
plus
10x50 on 1 min alternating fly and free

I must have been pretty tired for the second 1000m in this. The 100's were 1:45-1:52. The 50 frees were ~48-52 seconds. The 50 fly legs were 49-57. I was just running out of gas for the last few i guess, but I suppose when you do 750m of fly in 2000m you "PAY"

Ocean in Halifax? How's the water temp & what are you wearing? Just curious.

4-12
3700 yard ocean swim in 49 minutes from Shaw's Cove. This time, south to Laguna Main Beach buoy. I encountered some of the thickest kelp I've been in - very difficult to get through, plus really weird short period waves from the north as well as a hefty wind and associated wind chop. Was very exhausting.

4-13
Easy fun morning swim from Shaw's to Seal Rock. Colder water - 58 degrees, but conditions were otherwise fine. 2300 yards in 31 minutes


4-14
Whoa! Another morning ocean swim at Shaw's to Seal Rock. Still cold, but wetsuit works well, even at 57 degrees. 2900 yards in 38 minutes

4-15
Morning swim from a different location, for a change - The Montage Resort. I swam north until I saw 1.2 miles on my watch and then turned around. The water was cool - 58-60, and nearly perfect conditions except it was murky. Only later did we find we were bordering on a 1 mile stretch of beach closure due to a sewage spill. Disgusting. Went home and took a really hot shower, gargled with hydrogen peroxide, cleaned out my ears, etc. But, it was a good swim, done with intensity - 4668 yards in 1:06.

4-16
Back to Shaw's this morning for Easter swim and party with the pod. They all turned at Seal Rock, while I continued to Emerald Point, then turned toward shore and swam parallel to it, Emerald Bay, before heading back out to get back to Seal Rock and continue back to Shaw's. No murky water as the current is southbound and we're north of the spill. Still cold at 58 degrees, but another fine long swim - 4917 yards in 1:05. That's a sub-56 minute Ironman swim - faster than the two IMs I've done.

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Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.

Nope, Bermuda.

Haven't gotten in yet though, with Easter weekend duties and very choppy conditions.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

LOL....Kienle's Tire Choice at Cannes thread gets more views in a day than the April fish thread got in half a month. Goes to show you what we as a collective group prioritize (bought speed vs trained for speed). But I digress.

During today's 90 min swim I did a bunch of 200's modified IM (50,50,25,75). I am just working back into breast stroke and so far so good. No collar bone pain. I found that for my backstroke as soon as I entered the water pinky finger first, if I pushed the water out and away from me (like a reverse skulling motion from free or breast), I really caught more water, and my backstroke stroke rate actually improved. I felt less of a dead spot in my stroke that I had to kick through and my legs were less fried after the backstroke leg. Am I doing this correctly?

I wouldn't characterize the correct catch in backstroke as an outsweep. You're basically keeping your hand relatively close to the surface through the pull hand above the elbow. That will help to keep you from dropping (or leading with) the elbow. On the catch you just want to get into that high hand position as early as you can.

Heading to the pool this morning. It's a gorgeous facility here, and a beautiful day. A pleasant change from the cold and indoor pool.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I swam here this morning:-)

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Nice! We had a bit of snow yesterday...

4000 SCM this morning
300 WU
3 x (
400 pull
2x50 dolphin kick
8x50 odds fly, evens free
100 build by 25s)
700 cd

I've never really paid much attention to the fish threads as I am most definitely not a fish and you people are so damn fast! I happened to glance at it this morning and saw the challenge of 4x per week so I'm in... if it's not too late to join. I have a half aqua bike coming up in 7 or 8 weeks (IT band, can't run) so it's time to get serious in the pool. My last month of training has been less than ideal as I dealt with illness, but I'm back at it this week and aiming for all green (on TP... when a workout goes yellow or red I get pissed off).

With that said, I have two swims on the schedule this week but am upping it to 4 as yesterday's swim (first time in a week or two) felt like I had never been in the pool before! I worked pretty hard last year to get my cruising speed down to the low 1:30's from the high 1:40's and feel like I've lost some of that. I definitely have some technique issues, but at this point a lot of it is simply fitness and not swimming enough. I've been swimming at our local high school but the hours are less than ideal and as my swim gets longer to prepare for MT I realized I wouldn't have enough time so I joined a new gym. The good part about the new gym is that I have friends to swim with... I will never understand why it's easier to swim with other people considering you only have a few seconds to chat at the wall, but it definitely is. It must have something to do with paying attention to other people, chasing other people down, shared suffering, etc.

With all that said...

Yesterday's workout was
800y warmup (4x100 EZ working on technique, 4x50 fast, 2x100 @ threshold pace)
15@100y @ 1:35... I probably averaged 1:38 or so.
200y cooldown

today's workout was:

300y warmup
4x100 drill (I just swam 4x100 easy)
5x(25, 50, 75, 100, 75, 50, 25)

We cut the last set short as everyone was running out of time. This was my first time swimming SCM and it took me a few laps to figure out what was going on. At first I thought I was simply having a really bad day!

The plan is to swim both Thursday and Friday as well this week so that will be 4x.

That is awesome! Looking forward to some outdoor swimming in the summer!

OK, as part of todays 85 min swim main "set" was 2000m of modified IM + 100m kick + 400m fly-free

2000m = 10 x 200m (50fly-25back-25breast-100free)...nothing heroic, I came in just around 40 minutes (I don't know my exact start time, but my breast stroke is so slow.....

my back stroke is getting better thanks to all the tips around here. I am pretty confident i can do the full 2000m of real IM but it's going to be well over 40 minutes on account of the slow breast. I will give that a try by end of month (12 more days for that)

400m as 4x50mfly+50m free) in 7:15

By the way is it legal to kick 3 times in fly for a single upper body stroke. I ended up doing this a few times on account of someone else in the lane and not wanting to smack arms. I am not sure if I am any "slower" and it gives the arms a short break.

Legal yes. Optimal ... ??

http://www.swimalberta.ca/officials/clnics

Download the officials clinic for Stroke/Turn.

Far more concerned that feet are moving in unison...

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Just wanted to report back.

At age of 51 I achieved a "lifetime first"

Here is the back story. It was the 1984 Olympic Games in LA and I was watching Alex Baumann from Canada on TV. That's 33 years ago. So you know how these things work when you are 19. You watch something on TV and say, "hey, I am going to do that". I also watched Joan Benoit, Rob De Castella, Carlos Lopez, Alberto Salazar inn the Olympic marathon and at that point in my life, the furthest I had run was 10K.

This was August of 84, so I go to the local pool to try to do the Alex Baumann routine. I think I got to around 3 fly thrashing strokes before nearly drowning and quickly gave and thinking, "these guys are insane".

So fast forward a month later and it is 1 week before the Montreal Marathon and the entire failure of trying the Alex Baumann routine was bugging me. So I went out running, did 10K and then extended to 15k which seemed pretty easy and thought, "well, if I can't do the stupid 400m IM, surely I can run a marathon". Next weekend, I was on the start line of the Montreal Marathon, to do the running part of the Olympic challenge. Keep in mind, that summer I had spent 3 weeks bike touring across the Alps and Europe and I had "already" done as much or more than the Olympic cyclists in terms of distance in a day, so now I felt i had to do the "tough" olympic running event. So I get through 10K in 45 min, 20K in 90 min, 30K in 2:15 and was thinking, "what's with all this BS about running a marathon being hard. I should be done in sub 3:10 with no training. Well, the 4:30 k's last till 33K and then doing this on nothing but water, I exploded into a walk....this felt more miserable than doing fly, and I walked till around 38K but managed to get a bag of BBQ chips froma spectator around 36K and after topping up on carbs, salt and fat, got my second wind and came in at 3:41!

So, the second part of this story happens last nite. I totally forgot about my futile attempt at the 400IM in 1984, and was finishing my swim with a hard 100 fly...as you guys know I am focusing on back and breast training so I flipped into 100back.....then I started thinking about 1984 and the incomplete mission to emulate Alex Baumann...which lead to 100 breast (it's actually the first time in my life I did 100 breast continuous). Suddenly I was on the 100 free leg and I got the 400 IM done 33 years later.

I probably could have achieved this in September 2016 when I first developed the ability to cover 100 fly without stopping, but forgot about this challenge to myself from 1984. Mission complete over 3 decades later. I have now completed the 'three hardest event' in swim, bike and run from the 1984 Olympic games after being inspired by pro athletes! Sometimes, things take a bit of time.

Thanks to all the fish on here who have encouraged me along in my swimmer flailing!!!

4-17
Afternnon ocean swim - the three of us couldn't decide what to do once we got out there and changed our plans 3 times after meandering about. Changed because the kelp was too thick, and then, the return leg would be against the increasing wind. So we just wandered about the cove.1900 yards in 33 minutes. Sub-60 water temp.

4-18
Morning Pool Swim:

4x250 as fr/k IM order/br/fr
4x250 kwf IM order
5x100@1:45 alt pull/fr 1:10 both frs
5x50@1:00 br pull
5x50@1:00 alt fr/br 25hard/25ez
6 minutes of water running
3000 yards in 53 minutes

4-19
Morning Ocean Swim - with calm conditions, we swam out and around Seal Rock. I was tempted to swim through the crack in the rock, timing the swells and the sets. I was about to start when a rougue set hit the rock. The wall of water in the crack was a good 10 feet and the surge pushed me back quite a ways from the entrance. I decided to go around. 2500 yards in 32 minutes
Lunch Swim in the Sloshbucket

500s
500 kwf
5x50 pull br/fr
5x50 pull fl/fr
5x50 pull bk/fr
5x50 bk fins
2000 yards in about 40 minutes

4-20
Morning Ocean Swim - Howard needed to leave sooner, so we just swam circles around the cove. The close-to-shore temp is now down to 55 degrees and 57-58 outside. with three loops, I surprisingly got in 2700 yards in like a half-hour. Somethings up with that - either the time or the distance is off. Strange cuz, it's a GPS watch getting all the data.

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Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.

Any fish heading to Riverside, CA next week? I will be there.
I haven't been posting many workouts here in the fish locker because my workouts aren't too focused on distance/open water any more (for the most part).
My longest event will be 200 yards. =)

Great that your shoulder is better. i noted that my running (OK, I am only shuffling) has deteriorated a bit since I started doing more breast stroke. With the psoas attachment at the femur and the breast kick there is some tugging at the other end at my spine where I have the disc/nerve issue, and it seems like my control of my bad left leg is less coordinated recently, so I am going to lay off breast stroke for a few days and see if there is any correlation.

During yesterday's swim, my main set was 3x400IM + 400m fly free.

This is how it was done

400m number 1 = IM kick with fins 4x(25 fly kick, 25 back kick, 25 breast kick, 25m free kick)
400m number 2 = 4x100m (25fly-25back-25breast-25 free)
400m number 3 = conventional 400m IM
400m number 4 = 4x(50fly+50free) in 7:08

In between each continuous 400m, I did 50m or 100m kick with the board. I was kind of hoping to get under 7 min on the 400 fly-free, and was on pace till halfway but ran out of gas/lost form on the final 2 legs.

Dev

I am back in Oregon after a trip to Salt Lake. 700 yards this morning, pull w/ band. My PSIS is slightly rotated and kicking kinda hurt. The PT gave me some self-correction exercises that I am going to try today.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Thanks. It is/was not that "out" and is better today - not totally there but getting better.
500 yard swim with flip turns! I did open turns yesterday and I wasn't kicking. Today I could kick and turn.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I know a breaststroke guy from Vancouver is going... if the meet does go SCM for 2018 I might go. USMS is officially on the fence for Indy 2018. http://www.usms.org/content/nationals

SCM or SCY TBD...

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)