Here are week 9's workouts.
Here's where I think you are now: You're strong. You've got a lot endurance. You can swim at a given pace for a long way. But you're probably not that fast yet. Okay, maybe you've gotten incrementally faster, and you may have gotten faster in your long sustained swims. But you might not be able to swim, let us say, 200 or 300 yards a lot faster than you could 5 or 6 weeks ago.
This is by design. My hope during this challenge was to get you used to longer workouts, that is, to help you incorporate 3000 yard workouts into your entire triathlon training regimen. Also, I wanted to expose you to various methods of improving your technique and identifying flaws in your stroke, your balance, your body position. If we all did our jobs correctly you should now be able to confidently swim for 1.2mi or 2.4mi and exit the water exhilarated and ready for the bike.
But I'm not done. Now I want to work on that raw speed. I've got a couple of more weeks with you, and that's what we're going to focus on. My "Nasty 150" workouts - there are 2 of them this week - are designed to make you faster by challenging you to make a tough interval, and then giving you just enough rest so that you can do it again. Yes, it's a lot like waterboarding. During the first of these Nasty 150s you swim 3x150yd with a rest of 2x150yd on a slower interval. Then comes an even nastier set, later in the week, that should leave your arms feeling like spaghetti.
Our guest coach this week is Ian Murray, and his brand of training comes along just at the right time for you, because Ian wants you to be fast. What I mean is, he's happy that you're smooth, and relaxed, and that you glide well, and that your stroke is pretty. But my take on his approach to coaching is this: they don't award style points; they only award speed points.
So, this week it's about taking a lot of what you learned and translating that into speed, by getting you used to swimming fast, and swimming hard. You have to be careful doing this when a swimmer also has the bike and run to worry about and you also can't throw too much at an athlete at once. During these past 8 weeks I've asked you to swim 3000 and more per workout, as opposed to the 1500 to 2000 yards a lot of you were swimming. And, I've asked you to fix problems in your technique. Now that you're swimming with better technique, and you're used to 3000 yard workouts, we're going to take all this new fitness and ability out for a spin. Let's see if we can make you a minute faster over 1500 meters in the next couple of weeks.
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
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week9.pdf
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
Here's where I think you are now: You're strong. You've got a lot endurance. You can swim at a given pace for a long way. But you're probably not that fast yet. Okay, maybe you've gotten incrementally faster, and you may have gotten faster in your long sustained swims. But you might not be able to swim, let us say, 200 or 300 yards a lot faster than you could 5 or 6 weeks ago.
This is by design. My hope during this challenge was to get you used to longer workouts, that is, to help you incorporate 3000 yard workouts into your entire triathlon training regimen. Also, I wanted to expose you to various methods of improving your technique and identifying flaws in your stroke, your balance, your body position. If we all did our jobs correctly you should now be able to confidently swim for 1.2mi or 2.4mi and exit the water exhilarated and ready for the bike.
But I'm not done. Now I want to work on that raw speed. I've got a couple of more weeks with you, and that's what we're going to focus on. My "Nasty 150" workouts - there are 2 of them this week - are designed to make you faster by challenging you to make a tough interval, and then giving you just enough rest so that you can do it again. Yes, it's a lot like waterboarding. During the first of these Nasty 150s you swim 3x150yd with a rest of 2x150yd on a slower interval. Then comes an even nastier set, later in the week, that should leave your arms feeling like spaghetti.
Our guest coach this week is Ian Murray, and his brand of training comes along just at the right time for you, because Ian wants you to be fast. What I mean is, he's happy that you're smooth, and relaxed, and that you glide well, and that your stroke is pretty. But my take on his approach to coaching is this: they don't award style points; they only award speed points.
So, this week it's about taking a lot of what you learned and translating that into speed, by getting you used to swimming fast, and swimming hard. You have to be careful doing this when a swimmer also has the bike and run to worry about and you also can't throw too much at an athlete at once. During these past 8 weeks I've asked you to swim 3000 and more per workout, as opposed to the 1500 to 2000 yards a lot of you were swimming. And, I've asked you to fix problems in your technique. Now that you're swimming with better technique, and you're used to 3000 yard workouts, we're going to take all this new fitness and ability out for a spin. Let's see if we can make you a minute faster over 1500 meters in the next couple of weeks.
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
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._challenge_week9.pdf
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman