I haven't done a set with intervals longer than 200 in years. The only time I've done a 1500 straight is in a race. Increase your reps (a lot more than 4), vary your intervals between 25-200s, and adjust your send off so that you are getting between 5-10 sec rest per 100 on normal efforts. Harder efforts get more rest. Look at the monthly fish thread for workout ideas. Do a search for slowman's training threads for the guppies and tarpons. Perhaps JasonInHalifax will actually do his workout of the day thing that he eluded to but might have lost steam on motivation.

My standard swim workout formula is as follows:
Warmup (400-800 yards, never straight, including drills and pickups)
Main set (1000-3000 yards at tempo-type effort, as 50s-2000 varied by day)
Challenge set (400-1000 yard at faster than main set and more rest. Hard 25s, 50s, and 100s, IM)
Cooldown (100-200 yards, as easy swimming. Sometimes it's bullshitting with whomever will listen just to get out of the yards. I don't get it either.)

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Alright, alright. It's coming!!

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

AHHHHHHHHH... This workout would literally kill me -- Mentally.

If you're looking for some variation, try some of Sara McLarty's workouts;

http://mastersswimworkoutsbysaramclarty.blogspot.ca/

13 hours a week of swimming? Or all training combined?

#1 thing to decide when building a workout is "what am I trying to do today?" I can make a straight 4000m swim into a sprint workout, if I desire. I can make 25's into an aerobic threshold set. There are about 1000 different ways to do your standard swim workout to accomplish different things, or just for variety. That's without changing any of those repeat lengths.

So, I don't know if that is a good workout or not. Actually, I would say that there is no such thing as a bad workout, just workouts that are inappropriate for producing the training adaptation response you are looking for.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

If you're just looking to grind out some yards, that looks fine.

But as noted by others, for every set you should be asking yourself what you are trying to accomplish. The intensity, rest, and sometimes even skills you are working on change everything about the set and what it is trying to accomplish.

I wrote up an article on set types as part of a series on kinda what it's all about and what different workout types are trying to accomplish a good while back. You can see it here,

It should help you understand what is going on and get a sense of what you are trying to accomplish. That should help understand whether you are doing it yourself or using something you found on the internet.

Once you kinda have a sens of what different set types are all about, it should you decide which types of swim sets to seek out.

13 hours all together. About 4 hours of swimming. Next year I have about 6 sprint tri's in mind. I wanted to do a ironman but no 750$ laying around.

You may want to think about shorter distances. Boring sets are the most effective and will allow you to track your progress. Like Jason said, you can make 25s an aerobic set.

20x100, 40x50, etc. is the way to go.

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https://twitter.com/mungub

You need a mix of different types of workouts to improve. Different practices need different focuses. Even distance swimmers need speed workouts to help turnover and get the heart pumping. My suggestion for 3x a week as an example would be:

Practice 1: Pace day. main set of 100s pace on an interval giving you approx 10seconds rest. Main set #2 of 50s pace on an interval w/5-10sec rest.

Practice 2: Distance day. 400-500s pace or 400-500s descend. Focus on finishing your last 400/500 at 80-90% (hard but not AO)

Practice 3: Sprint Day. Small sets ending with 50s or 100s hard.
EX.
4x50K
4x50DR/FS
1x100 for time
200 recovery

Note: if you're not naturally a sprinter you can use fins to try and help pick up your turnover (faster kick makes your arms move faster)

Actually I disagree. You would be hard pressed to find top level programs doing 20x100s on a regular basis (multiple times per week). I was a collegiate distance swimmer (over 60,000 yards a week) and we would once or twice a month swim 22x150s or long boring sets. Most often you need to mix it up both in intervals and distance within a set to keep your mind engaged. If your bored and not paying attention you will not see the improvement as someone who is focused and into the set that is shorter and varied.
As many have stated it really depends on what you want to get out of an individual practice and what you want to focus on.

You were also swimming 60k plus a week. I would bet he is swimming maybe 10k a week, so 10k of monotony should not be that bad. Toughen up :)

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https://twitter.com/mungub

Maybe with less monotony, he'll swim more ;)

I posted ages ago that if I had to do one set, and one set only, it would be 20x100. However, I think I also said that I never actually do that set in reality. Life is too short to repeat workouts.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I would advise working on technique A LOT this time of year. Whatever workout you do, build in a large amount of skill work to improve your efficiency in the water. This will be more effective in making you faster. Then you can increase your yardage and intensity later. You can find tons of free workouts online if you search. I would mix it up so you don't get bored, but make sure most of your swimming is slow and easy and focused on keeping good form as long as you can. If you can't hold good form for a long time (subjective to your race distance), that's a problem.