Here are week 8's workouts.
We're going to swim a little bit shorter this week. Not quite as many yards. But I don't think you'll feel as if, by the end of the week, you took it easy.
Our guest coach this week is our own Tigerchik, mistress of the fishies, and this is in line with my view that you're best off hearing both from those who make their livings on the pool deck as well as those who, just like you, must fit your workouts in around work, study, spouses or SOs, kids, blah blah. But when I choose one among our peers to share his or her workout it's going to be somebody with a deep swim background; fortunately we have these on our reader forum, Tigerchik among them.
It's time to make hay. It's time to put the skills, weeks upon weeks of yards upon yards, technical improvements, to the test. The one workout I hope you'll not skip from here on in is that 1500 yard time trial. This is the closest thing we'll do that corresponds to what you're in fact training for: the swim in a triathlon. I want you to see the progress you're making. I want a baseline, so that when you come back next year and you want to know if you're faster or slower than this year you'll have a benchmark. I want you to be ready when another postal swim comes along, so that you can join in and be somewhat prepared for what that will feel like. I want you to feel what it's like to go out appropriately hard, hard enough, but not too hard. I want you to know what it feels like, after 300 or 400 yards into a long, hard swim, to feel hypoxic and to have a strategy for that, whether it's breathing patterns, or just calming yourself and staying in control of your ventilation.
I don't ever want you to feel, when you're in the water, in a triathlon, in the swim, that you're in uncharted territory. If you feel that way in a marathon, well, bummer. Maybe you step off the road and onto the curb. There is no curb in the ocean, or in the middle of the lake. So, during the swim, I want you to be safe, I want you to prosper, I want you to know that you've been there before (even if "there" takes place in the pool), I want you to be ready to attack the swim rather than simply to survive the swim. This is why I have you doing something in this series that you'd be unlikely to be asked to do in a masters swim team workout: a 1500 yard straight, timed swim. And in this case, for the next few weeks, to do this swim weekly.
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week1.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week2.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week3.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week4.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week5.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week6.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week7.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week8.pdf
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
We're going to swim a little bit shorter this week. Not quite as many yards. But I don't think you'll feel as if, by the end of the week, you took it easy.
Our guest coach this week is our own Tigerchik, mistress of the fishies, and this is in line with my view that you're best off hearing both from those who make their livings on the pool deck as well as those who, just like you, must fit your workouts in around work, study, spouses or SOs, kids, blah blah. But when I choose one among our peers to share his or her workout it's going to be somebody with a deep swim background; fortunately we have these on our reader forum, Tigerchik among them.
It's time to make hay. It's time to put the skills, weeks upon weeks of yards upon yards, technical improvements, to the test. The one workout I hope you'll not skip from here on in is that 1500 yard time trial. This is the closest thing we'll do that corresponds to what you're in fact training for: the swim in a triathlon. I want you to see the progress you're making. I want a baseline, so that when you come back next year and you want to know if you're faster or slower than this year you'll have a benchmark. I want you to be ready when another postal swim comes along, so that you can join in and be somewhat prepared for what that will feel like. I want you to feel what it's like to go out appropriately hard, hard enough, but not too hard. I want you to know what it feels like, after 300 or 400 yards into a long, hard swim, to feel hypoxic and to have a strategy for that, whether it's breathing patterns, or just calming yourself and staying in control of your ventilation.
I don't ever want you to feel, when you're in the water, in a triathlon, in the swim, that you're in uncharted territory. If you feel that way in a marathon, well, bummer. Maybe you step off the road and onto the curb. There is no curb in the ocean, or in the middle of the lake. So, during the swim, I want you to be safe, I want you to prosper, I want you to know that you've been there before (even if "there" takes place in the pool), I want you to be ready to attack the swim rather than simply to survive the swim. This is why I have you doing something in this series that you'd be unlikely to be asked to do in a masters swim team workout: a 1500 yard straight, timed swim. And in this case, for the next few weeks, to do this swim weekly.
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week1.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week2.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week3.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week4.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week5.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week6.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week7.pdf
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week8.pdf
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman