OK, all good info. I just booked my flights for Calgary for Nationals. The co founder of my company, as it turns out lives 2K from the Repsol pool and we just hired some employees in Calgary, so I have to make a trip there visit them and some customers anyway! Working on the technical aspects of the turns in each stroke and transitioning between strokes to get that down. For me, there is a lot of "free speed" to be had just learning basics of these and getting them down. I will do the 100IM, 200IM, 400IM, 100 fly, 200 fly, 400 free and hopefully the 1500m free. If I can't get into that (as the first time I will do a 1500free is May 4), I will do the 200 free or 50 fly.

Tomorrow swim meet 100 free, 50 fly, 50 back, 50 breast, 50 free, 100 IM. Went through each one multiple times today just going through the motions doing some "surges". Goal for tomorrow is 41 second fly and 1:40 IM. Breast I would like to get to 55...same with back. We'll see.

Jason, I have a question. I can't dive due to my neck/head injuries, but I can do a wall push off and can also do a start from the backstroke block and for breast and fly turn in the air and enter head down. Is this legal for those strokes? For freestyle it is and for back stroke start, I am good to go anyway. I will also ask the officials.

State Masters Swimming Championship is next weekend. I'll be able to swim only on Friday, which I swam fine by me, since that is distance day. 1000 and 1650 free//

Good luck with those two races, it will be interesting to see how the pace differs losing 650 for the 1000. An old friend of mine used to do that and his pace would almost be identical, he had one pace from 500 on up. He is in the 55+ now and I think still did 1;04 pace for the hour swim, like a metronome.


2 days in a row for me, whoo hooo! Was thinking of Dev, so threw some IM in my warm up set;


8x100, evens free@1;50/ odds IM@2;00 free(1;24 to 1;21) IM's(1;28/26/25/23)
8x100IM kixk@2;00(1;51/51/50/50/49/49/49)
2x200p@3;00(2;29/2;26) 100 dolphin(2;05)
2100SCY

I would think the main delta between 1000 yd pace and 1650 yd pace is how fast you do the last 150-200 yards and how that changes the overall average. It's like asking what is the diff between your 10 min power and 17 minute power. It's almost the same other than the contribution that the last 2 min has to the average. At least for older athletes, this would be quite common!

I think the 1650 is first, so I'll probably go for that one, then see what I have left in the tank for the 1000.

True story: the last 150 of my 1650 at the 2015 USMS nationals was faster than my last 150 of the 500 at the same meet. When I try to pick it up, everything falls apart. I did a series of swims this week that confirmed that I'm really just a Diesel engine and more efficient at a constant rate. I did three sets of 10 x 50 over two days. I found that being slightly more relaxed and thinking of my pace as 1000 pace got me just the same times as when I tried to spin it up to 200 pace. Then, I followed that last set with a set of 100's where I was just trying to be aerobic, and my times were pretty quick. Today I did some 200's long course that were easy and fast.

Signed,
The Diesel

I'm not sure since I've never seen anyone attempt it, but IIRC the rule for breast and fly is that you must be on your front at all points in the race. So I doubt that's allowed. What did you do at the last meet?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I swam yesterday at the Lake James SwimRun. My partner and I placed 14th overall and 5th coed team. The course was fantastic with 13 miles of running on asphalt, gravel, singletrack and no trail whatsoever! The swims ranged from as short as 25 yards to 1600 yards. And, the water was about 54 degrees. Some swim entries and exits were slippery, muddy cliffs as high as 6 feet which they thoughtfully provided ropes to help you climb down/up. This was the best marked course I’ve ever run on with ribbons everywhere. The weather wasn’t much warmer than the lake and we had a bit of rain, but for most, it was tolerable. We briefly met Herbert — his team finished about 10 minutes ahead of us and placed second in coed. In all, a great, fun race.

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

Last meet I just had one hand hanging on wall and pushed off such that as soon as left the blocks my body twisted face down. At yesterday's meet I checked with the meet organizer (Andrea Schwarz Smith who did the 200 fly in the Olympics and coaches a local master team) and she showed me what I can do. I guess one hand hanging off facing starter and then when the gun goes, get on my stomach almost instantly. I will check at Nationals what they will allow. I forgot for my 50 free that I could start from the full backstroke start block position and twist in the air and enter however I want.

These were the times from yesterday's meet, all wall push off. I beat all the times I was hoping for:

• 100 free 1:26
• 50 fly 42
• 50 back 51
• 50 breast 56
• 50 free 39
• 100 IM 1:40

I think I can easily get the 50 fly and free well under 40 seconds with some proper training for going short and hard and get the 100 free closer to 1:20. I'll work on the back and breast a lot this month as this is low hanging fruit to get the 100 IM closer to 1:30 in due course. I got some good tips on my backstroke and beat my target time by 9 seconds!


Also question about last 10m of any of these shorter races....is there any point breathing in fly or free. It just seems like it might be faster to leave head down and hammer since you're just using fast twitch fiber and you don't need oxygen to create force from those muscles for short duration.


Dev

Breathing in fly... it depends on how that affects your stroke timing and rhythm. I "try" to not breathe the last 3-4 strokes, but it depends on how gassed I'm feeling,

50 fly I'll take 3 breaths if I can. One per length and one at the turn.

Free, head down for the last 5 m. Let experience guide if you can do more, but it's hell just doing 5 m when you're already in severe oxygen debt.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Friday
11 mi run w/ 2 @ 8:41 pace then 5 @ 8:34 pace

Saturday
34.2 mi bike

Sunday
10 mi run w/ 4 progressive (8:41, 8:34, 8:27, 8:20) then 2 x 2 mi first mile at 8:34, second at 8:27
1025 yd easy swim

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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

Yesterday was a spring gravel race here in Minnesota, the Ragnarok 105. Except it hasn't been spring and some of the Minimum Maintenance Roads were covered in snow and ice still and unsafe to be riding so it was the Ragnarok 80. 80 miles and 6,000' of climbing. Add in a high of 30F, some 15mph headwinds for the latter half, and poor pacing, and I was pretty well spent at the end of the day.

Today I went swimming again! Hopped over to my third pool for the week, another local high school pool. I think I'm making progress. Tomorrow morning is back with masters again and I am optimistic I can finish the "warm-up"!

50y - 1:16
100y - 2:17
350y - 7:58, Thought it was 500, but clearly I can't count lengths yet
500y - 11:28, Longest continuous swim ever!
50y - all out... 59.1
50y - all out... 56.6
3x100y - 2:15, 2:11, 2:12
250y - 5:41

Total of 1650y... or a swimmers mile I take it. What the hell is up with that?

Anyhow, I was pretty stoked to be able to swim without feeling like I was drowning. I'm slower than a log floating in a lake, but its progress.

Glad you enjoyed the experience. So did I.

I actually gave up my master swim classes on Wednesday and Friday last week and only did a mellow 750 Meter swim on Thursday to get ready for Lake James. :-)

Back to the grind this morning:
10x300 as
wu/fr/fr/k/p/p/p/br/im/cool


3000 sc yardages

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

I am going back on Wednesday :-)

Masters this morning. And I even got to do a significant portion of the workout.

600m choice w/u (everyone else did 800)

6 x 50 drill - 25 kick, 25 fingertip drag

6 x 200 on 5:00 (everyone else did 8x on substantially less than 5!)

6 x 25 all out

100m c/d

Another longest swim ever (also known as my fourth swim ever)

A swim session from my (very brief) ITU days, our squad did this almost weekly.

Warm-up (1k)
100 Free
50 Back
50 Free
50 Kick
Through 4 times

Main Set (3k):
500 Finis Freestyle Paddles easy on 7.30
5x100 Tyr Contour (I think they're called that) Paddles on 1.25
10x50m on 40s
x2

C/D
200m Easy

The 50's can be pushed back to a 50s cycle, but then the intensity of that has to go from short rest high end aerobic, to above race pace work.

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__________________________________________________
http://twitter.com/willrc91 --- instragram.com/willrc91

Missed a few days in Ye Old Thread.

4/5
2,100 yards
w/u
200 easy
200 w/buoy & paddles
4 x 50 kick
m/s
4 x 300 moderate
w/d
2 x 100 mixed (breast kick still very painful)
100 kick


4/9
2,200

w/u
300 easy alt breath x 50
4 x 100 1-arm
3 x 100 bound
m/s
5 x 200
w/d
4 x 50 kick



4/10
2,100

w/u
50
100
150
3 x 100 1-arm, free x 50
3 x 100 bound
m/s
6 x 150 w/50 water running in between

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--------------------------
The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Finally got back to the ocean. So nice to taste that salty water again. Temperature was 58-60 degrees. A trip to Seal Rock from Shaw's Cove plus a little extra credit. 2300 yards in just under 25 minutes.

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

I am eyeing the St. Croix 5 mile Buc Island to Buccaneer swim at some point in the next few years in terms of Ocean swims. I just enjoy warmer water!!!

OK question for the fish.

If I get my 50 fly down below 40 seconds (I think that is possible), what does this translate to for 200 fly
Also what do I meed to get my 100IM down to, so that I can get below 7 minutes for 400IM.

Generally my problem is not endurance (some of the coaches at the last swim meet were joking that I was probably the fittest guy on the pool deck coupled with the worst technique+experience) so if I can get faster at 50-100m, it will translate to 200-400m events. I can basically go all day plowing through way more water than I need to catching very little water along the way.

yesterday 37.2 mi bike
today 8.9 mi run (7 @ 8:49 pace), 1875 yd swim

500 w.u
50 kick
100 swim, 50 kick, 150 swim, 50 kick, 200 swim, 50 kick
3 x 100 stroke
400 goofing off
25 kick

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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

1200m warmup set (4-3-2-1 s-p-k-d followed by 2x. (4x25 sprinters game)

Main set 2x (
6x100 @ 2:10
300 ez)

Round 1 was best average - held 10's for the first 4 then faded to 13 and 12 for the last 2

Round 2 was as fast as possible. There were only 3 in our lane tonight, so I made a deal with myself that if I did sub 1:05 on the first one then I could swim the rest easy. Did a 1:04 ! So I swam 50 east for repeat 2 then 1:15's after that.

Pretty pleased with that

ETA -

Abandoned trying to recover with a pretty bent elbow and all that jazz, and went back to a straight arm recovery. Much more effective for me,

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

There's really no way of using a 50 fly to estimate a 200 fly. There's just too much going on, too many variables. The list is long: how long a swimmer has been swimming; is the swimmer an endurance athlete or sprinter; what kind of training has been done; how many 50s at pace have been done in practice; was the test 50 off the blocks; breathing pattern; kicks off the wall; experience relaxing somewhat during a long fly attempt; shoulder flexibility/stability/strength/endurance....

I started a partial "taper" for events ts Friday. I registered for both the 1000 and 1650 on the same day. Doing a bit of estimating, and based on several different ways of seeding and conducting the events, I could have anywhere from 2h:00 to 3h:20 or more between. Time enough to rehydrate, eat, maybe have a beer, take a nap...

I have a good gauge on my attitude, and today, I just didn't want to go too far and get a micro burnout before Friday. I want to keep it fresh.

"Taper" is best seen as "staying sharp" or "sharpening." Doing the stuff that sharpens and focuses your ability to reach your goals. Less yardage, yes, but not just going slowly. Doing pace work to keep the body sharp. Garbage yardage at this point is just garbage and not needed. The hay is in the barn, in terms of aerobic capacity and threshold. Work the turns and streamlines, do the technical stuff at pace.

Warmup: 3 x 300 as 100 free, 50 back, 50 breast, 100 free
100 kick

6 x 50 @ :55, as easy/smooth as I could to hold 1000-1650 pace (:32)
50 swim + 50 kick
Repeat

4 x 75 @ 1:20, hold easy pace (:48-:49)
50 swim + 50 kick

3 x 100 descend to pace @ 1:30 (:08, :06, :04mid)
100 easy

2500 yards

7.2 mi easy 65:42
575 yd swim

100 swim on 1:30
50 kick
2 x 100 swim on 1:30
50 kick
100 fast 1:13
75 easy kick the first and last 25

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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

My OCD is not happy about this....

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

because of the ending with a 75?

---

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

Yup.

It's not right.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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