Picked up a couple of new toys, then headed over to the pool for a quick 1700m

400skps
4x100 pull @1:45 w/ paddles (steady pace, held 1:16's or so)
4 x 100 flutter kick w/ board (no fins) @2:00, 3 moderate (1:40's) 1 hard (1:29)
4 x 100 swim @1:50 (3 mod (1:18's), 1 quick (1:12))
100 ez kick / pull

New toys - a set of TYR Catalyst 2 paddles (size M). Blue Finis swedes (my other swedes are too dark for the pool) I tried out the new paddles, but the swedes I still have to assemble.

Love the paddles. They are pretty big, but don't feel big when you use them since they are pretty "balanced" They have a bit of flex to them, and the holes mean you retain some water feel, which is my main gripe with the Agility paddles.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

AM 7.5 mi run w/ 2 mi @ 8:34 pace and 1.5 mi @ 8:27 pace

PM 2025 yd swim

500 w/u
6 x 100 on 1:30
100, 150, 150, 100 with 50 kick after each
some other randomness

stroke felt reeeeaaallly good

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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

Friday is IM day

300S/300K/300P
8x50 on 60 IM order
8x100 on 1:45 alt.100s back/breas
8x50 on 60 Faster than first set
6x50K on 1:15 fly/bk/br
200 IM on 3:30 (2:57)
4x50 on 60 IM order
8x25 on 30 IM order)
100 cool down
3500 scy

SwimRun practice morning (just for fun and something different)
Heidi & I wore our shorty Orca SwimRun wetsuits and shoes. She chose her Vivobarefoot shoes (I hate them) and I had my Icebug Acceleritas on. The water was quite calm with the occasional surfable (big) sets rolling in. And, it’s about 56° – a bit cool but doable.
The shorty together with swimming with the shoes adds more than ten seconds per 100 to my pace, or around 1:45. We did two loops, swimming down the beach about 1300 yards and then running back on the beach. I felt I did pretty decent on the runs with cooled down body and numb toes 9:05 pace on first run and 9:23 for the second – I can’t keep up with Heidi, though I swam faster than her. If I didn’t wait for her at the buoy, she would have easily caught up on the runs. If we had more time I would have liked to have gone for a third lap. Maybe next time. I think we’re going to incorporate this into our training at least once a week.

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

yesterday 6 mi run w/ 5k race 24:43, 9 mi bike
today 9.5 mi easy run, 1225 yd swim

1000 free
50 kick
100 free
75 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

Yesterday's practice

I just realized that it's similar to Friday's swim. I must be getting forgetful in my old age

400 skps
4x100 swim (3 ez 1 fast) on 1:45 (1:10 fast one)
4 x 100 kick (fly/free by 25, 3 mod, 1 fast) on 2:10 (1:28 fast)
4x100 swim (3 ez 1 fast) on 1:45 (1:08 fast one)

4 x (3x50 @ :60, fl/bk, bk/br, br/fr) descend in groups of 3. Trying to learn the crossover turn, I wasn't an IM'er and never had any reason to learn how to do it. I figured "why not". Feels really awkward right now, slower than an open turn, but that's at least partially because I have to think about it and don't carry enough speed into the turn.

200 ez warmdown for 2400m total


Weights at lunch today. No legs, my knee is giving me grief walking up stairs....

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Did you decide what events you are swimming yet at the end of the month?

I hurt my back on Tuesday and then got a nasty sinus cold, haven't swam since last Monday. It's putting a serious damper in my strong 1500 plans! I'm still going to do it but now thinking of also going up to Montreal for Nationals with hopes for a better swim there.

Yea, just sent my entry in. 200free, 50 fly, 100 fly. I thought about 50 back but my knee has been acting up and I’m not sure it can handle a backstroke start.

200 is probably gonna suck. But that’s ok, just gonna do the best I can

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I'm thinking I may just do 200 + 1500. I would do 50 fly if it was after the 1500 but 100 fly sounds like too much..

500 sw
400 pull
200 drill

5x100 Im on 1:40 holding 1:25-1:30
5x100 freek on 1:25 holding 1:10-1:15

300 drill

200 ez

Tonight:

Can’t even remember warmup. It was 100s, 100k, 100s 200 pull and something else. aProlly 700 total?

Main set
2x{
4x50 (3 smooth 1 fast @:50) (33’s on fast, 38-39 on smooths)
200 swim build
4x50 @60 2 pull, 2 kick
200 swim build
}

200 ez warmdown

Total 2500m

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Endurance today, emphasis on 200s.

WU: 300 easy/6x50 kick drills

Prep: 8x75 free/IM(no-free)

MS: 2x free/IM
{4x200 @ 3:30
100 easy
}

CD: 300 easy/6x50 free/back

3600SCM total

Shoulders sore. That was a lot of fly.

I'm jealous; I wish I had a place to do swimrun practices (not that I am planning a race, just that it looks like fun). If it were allowed, I'd be the weirdo swimming back and forth (in shoes) then running along the trail that circles Lady Bird Lake south of downtown Austin.

last week:

tuesday main set:
5x100 strong w/ ankle band
2x [500 build, 100 kick]

friday main set was just 5x200, 50 strong, 100 smooth, 50 build, which is a shortened mimic for pacing a tri race.

Sunday: first tri of the season (< 50*F at start, luckily it was in a spring that is always wetsuit legal so I could stay relatively warm beforehand). The swim is only ~500y, and official splits include a ~200y run to transition. Came away with the fastest split by ~40s, which is good because I only managed to win by 8s due to taking a long ass time in transition drying off a bit and putting on gloves and a headband before the bike (I was still cold and feet were numb from cold coming into T2). Watch time on the swim was 5:34, official split with the run was 6:28.

This weekend I will visit my parents in TN, and they have an endless pool in their basement. I might try to video myself at various speeds with a gopro then compare to normal swimming. In the past it just hasn't felt right in that pool and I want to try and understand why.

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Its been a while since I've posted. I've been following a purchased training plan...and, have been pretty busy at work. so, I just haven't had much time to get on here.

Long story short, the training plan has been ~3x swims per week, roughly 3 - 3.5k each. 1 day of 100 focus, 1 day of 200 focus, and 1 day of long swimming (3x800-1000). The 100s and 200s were all on short rest, 10-15s max.

The plan started with a 1000yTT which I did and managed a 17:09.
6 weeks later....I did a follow up 1000yTT yesterday, in 17:26.

I'm not very happy with that. Same or better would have been, ok. ~20s worse, is not. On the baseline TT, I felt like I didn't pace it very well, and left some on the table---just because I hadn't done a long effort in several months. So, I was a bit conservative. Yesterday though, I definately did NOT leave anything significant on the table. The effort felt "strong", and honestly, when I checked the clock I was expecting to see 16:xx, not mid-17. My guess while swimming the TT was 1:38-ish pace.

As I've noted in previous experiences swimming 3x doesn't seem to work for me. And all this LONG SLOW SWIMMING---either from fatiguing pre-set sprints, very short rest, or just swimming 1000y straight, only seems to have made me a slower swimmer. It has helped me to expand the average length of my sets from 2k to 3k+, and maybe that's a good thing. But, it has NOT made me faster.

So, today...I chose to do a USRPT set of 50s.

WU:
4x100 (30") 50 drill / 50 swim
2x25 (20") clock drill
2x100 (20") SA drill /swim

MS:
30x50 (20") usrpt @46s (Fail #26)

CD:
4x50 (10s) ez
100 ez

The last time I did this set before starting this plan, I was in the 43s range. I think that jives pretty well with the fall-off in the my 1000yTT time. So, I think I'll go back to the USRPT (100s and 50s) approach for a couple weeks and see what impact that has on my 1000yTT time. In the past, I've seen pace per 100y improvement of about 2s per week.

agree with your assessment.

Monday ran 15 miles, took Tuesday off

today 8.2 mi run, 1025 yd swim (speaking of long/easy)

---

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

It must be USRPT day today.

I've got provincials coming up next weekend, so it's time to do some race specific sharpening. I'm loathe to call it a "taper" because that implies you've been doing enough volume that you have something to taper from. Which I haven't, and don't.

So today it was:

400 SKPS warmup (pull with paddles)
USRPT #1 - 100 fly pace 25's (16's on 35) made 8, failed on 9, 50 ez kick, made 10-13, failed 14 and 15 (425m)
325 ez kick / swim
USRPT #2 - 200 free pace 25's (16's on 35) made 17, failed 18, 50 ez kick, made 19-30. Generally hitting :15.5's or thereabouts, little hard to tell exactly because the clocks are about 2.5s out of sync. (800m)
300 ez warmdown

total 2250m

It's not something that I can or want to do every day, a) because I'd get bored doing the same thing all the time, and b) because my squad isn't doing it. But today, it made sense because I was swimming on my own and I was lucky enough to get a lane to myself at lunchtime.

Tri-club swim practice tonight for the double....

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

out of curiosity, what plan is it? In general, the plans that I've seen have no clue how to actually train the swim. IMO, it takes a lot more than simply writing up a set, it also takes some explanation of the goals and how the athlete should be approaching the set. eg. 20x50 descend 1-4 can be interpreted a lot of different ways, and achieve different training goals.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Long story short, the training plan has been ~3x swims per week, roughly 3 - 3.5k each. 1 day of 100 focus, 1 day of 200 focus, and 1 day of long swimming (3x800-1000). The 100s and 200s were all on short rest, 10-15s max.


These are all basically the same sets, doing the same thing. You are doing 3 days of distance free, so not really surprised you are not getting faster. Maybe do one day your USRPT, another day take 30 to 40 seconds rest on 100's, and then your 800's day. Maybe even take more rest on the distance day and do a big descending set. I pretty much guarantee that you will get faster in your 1000, especially as compared to what you were doing here....

1000 Fr in 13:38
400 IM kick
10x100 on 1:30 (1:17-20)

Pull set on 1:30/100 base
1x200 in 2:31
2x150 in 1:52/3
3x100 in 1:15-16
4x50 in 37
100 cool down

Swimming has plateaued as biking/running volume has picked up.

Swim #2 today

2x{100s, 100k,100p w/paddles)
8x50 pull w paddles
4x50 kick

Main set
5x100 pull w paddles on 1:30
500 negative split
5x50 (2 pull, 3 fly/free)
250 hard

Warmdown
3x50 ascending
150 ez swim/kick

3000m total

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I have run every day so far this month and no surprise my swimming has been in the tank....less energy for swims, less legs.

But today I did a fun set

400m warmup combo free and breast
800IM....building each leg
400m kick with fins, back, and dolphin
6x200IM as 25 sprint, 25 legs only on each stroke
1x400IM @30 seconds slower than race pace
4x100 free with paddles with 8 dolphin kicks off the wall (open turns) trying to get as far as possible

3600scm

Thanks, Monty.

14 Year Old - Jacob Whittle... 50.40 LCM 100 Free at UK NATS. 0.9 faster than Michael Andrew at 14.

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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)

I saw that. Video linked here --> https://swimswam.com/...100-freestyler-ever/

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

nice double!


my mom called last night to say my grandmother had died. Well, not technically grandma but pretty much - her best friend's mom while they were growing up, who have been my third set of grandparents my whole life. It happened fast; I had expected to see them in May. I'm pretty mopey and sad. I figured exercise was unlikely to make me feel worse so a run and short swim.

8 mi run w/ 2.25 mi @ 9:05, 5.2 mi @ 8:57
675 yd swim

---

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