Guys, thanks for the 200 fly prep discussion. As you guys know, I decided to give this event a shot even with my rudimentary AOS flier skills. What I seem to have found myself doing for breathing is this

first length breath every 2
second breath every 2, maybe a few times breath every breath before the wall
third, 2-1-2-1...
fouth 2-1-1-2-1-1-2 (something like that)
Fifth 2-1-1-2-1-1-2 (something like that)
Sixth 1-1-1-1....
Seventh 1-1-1-1.....
Eight 1-1-2-2.....

Also the breath pattern would be affected by how much under water dolphin kicking is going on off the walls. I think Phelps and crew spend so much time under water, that once above, they are catching up. At least for myself, as my walls are bad, maybe I benefit from more streamline with the 2 stroke pattern above water. I am not sure how far past the flags I am coming up for air, but it's not that far in a 200 fly. I doubt I am doing more than 5-7 m from the wall under water given the flags are at 5m.

To Jason's point I find myself plowing through more water on the 1-1-1-1 pattern and trying to stay horizontal vs breathing every two strokes. I am not sure how Phelps seems to do it, but it seems his neck flexiblity and cervical spine flex are awesome

Monty for every day Sep 1 to Xmas I did one 200 fly per practice. Most of the time I did it like this

50 hard, 25 easy/recovery, 50 hard, 25 easy, 50 hard

During the 50 hard I was trying to hold my race pace target (50 seconds SCM)...25 easy was whatever I wanted.

The other version was 25 hard sprint-25 easy times four

Also some days I would do one of the above and I would also do another 200 fly as 25 sprint-25 dolphin times four.

OK these fins arrive via Amazon today. I'll report back tomorrow.

Couldn't get to sleep last night and then kept waking up. Probably just over worked it yesterday. Anyway, slept in.... So, I did chords tonight.

20x45s (20s) Green rubber.

I upped the reps by 5 today. Felt pretty good. Kinda surprised. I was pretty fatigued after the 15x I did on Sunday. And yesterday's pool set was pretty tough.

Anyway.... Also ran 2x today for the 100/100 for my second double in as many days...

Jan 8/8, 11kscy
R/D/S: 24/25/19

By the way, today's main set was 5x200IM on 4 minutes...trying to come in at 3:45. Then 10x100IM departing on 2:15...trying to come in at 1:45-1:50. I was trying to focus on pushing the back stroke legs for both of these 1000m IM set, but the pool was hot and I was slowing down closer to 1:55 min for the last few 100IM's

Phelps is kind of a rare beast in that he can keep his shoulders really low when he breathes. Most of us can't do that.

I haven't watched Dressel race recently, but I'm pretty sure he breathes every 2. Same with Joe Schooling.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Tough one today. Lots of fast swimming on short rest. ~4100 scy

Warm Up, 2 times through:
200 easy
2 x 100 @70%
2 x 50 @80%
2 x 25 @90%


Main Set:
12 x 25 @90% on :25 interval (which means 4-5 sec rest for me)
r:20
6 x 50 @80% on :50 interval
r:30-1:00


12 x 25 @90% on :30 interval
r:20
3 x 100 @80% on 1:35 interval
r:30-1:00


12 x 25 @90% on :25 interval
r:20
2 x 150 @80%
r:30-1:00


12 x 25 @alternating on :30 interval (odds @70%, evens @95%)
r:20
1 x 300 @70%


200 pull @70%

I haven't watched Dressel race recently, but I'm pretty sure he breathes every 2. Same with Joe Schooling.

I just watched a few of Kaleb's100 races, and he does every two except for into every wall, then he does 1,1. I'm sure if he did the 200, we would see him breath every stroke like most of the guys do.


Finally felt better after my xmas layoff, did the same exact set as I did a few days ago, only much faster, on less interval:


6x500- 1 swim@7;30(7;04)1 IM kick@10;00(9;30)1 buoy@7;30(6;58)1 IM kick@10;00(9;24)1 pull@6;45(6;23)1 IM kick @10;00(9;26)
8x50, odds fly@1;00/evens dolphin kick@1;30(36/35/35/35--58/57/58/57)
3400SCY


Pretty happy with the fly set, 1 more than last time, and a second faster per 50, and was able to just do 2 doubles per lap, feeling better about every 1

Possibly, maybe even probably. I’m just saying that it’s worth trying different patterns to see what works best.

Anyways, tonight’s practice went a lot better. Only minor cramping at the end.

I was early to practice, so I jumped in at the back of the lane for the second half of my old masters club practice (approx 1200 to 1500m, I wasn’t really paying attention enough to keep track, just following along. 10 minutes after that practice was done the tri club practice started

Warmup
300 (100 free, 100 non free, 100 free)
8x50 (25 kick w/ board, 25!pull w/ board between legs. Touch the board behind you on each stroke)
4x50 scull/swim

Main set 12x75 d1-3. on about 1:30 Fast ones were 60, 60, 61, 60

8x50 @60 (hold pace throughout) (39s and 40s)

150 ez (supposed to be 300 but pool was closing)

Roughly 3800 total.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Light day...

3x300 swim w/fins, kick w/fins, pull
6x50 (15) 45/45/43/43/43/43
4x400 (20) 1:43/36/36/43

1600scy

3.9m run 3x30 strides @ 6:00mpm. I broke 100miles in the run challenge today.

Jan 9/9 13kscy
R/D/S: 25/26/20

So.... Here's a question:

I wondering about adding more volume to my swim program. My current week looks like this (main sets only):

Sat: 30x25 USRPT
Sun: 15x50 chords
Mon: 30x50 USRPT
Tue: 20x50 chords
Wed: 1600y recovery swim
Thu: 30x100 USRPT
Fri: 1600y recovery swim

The recovery swims are starting to feel guilty short. Similarly, the usrpt 25s, and to a lesser extent the 50s. The usrpt sets kinda depends on how deep I get into the set before the 3rd Fail. If I make it to 30 at pace, I'm usually cooked.

But, I'm still making good progress following the above, so maybe I shouldn't mess with it until I start to plateau?

Monty, I am going to try this:

8x50, odds fly@1;00/evens dolphin kick@1;30(36/35/35/35--58/57/58/57)

Yesterday I did something similar, but it went like this

4x200m as


First 200m four times 25 fly hard-25 dolphin
Second 200m four times 25 fly hard-25 dolphin with fins
Third 200m four times 25 fly hard-25 single arm on side
Fourth 200m four times 25 fly hard-25 dolphin single arm on side with fins

I haven't posted in this thread in ages, gonna try to get back in the habit. Consistency for me for the last month or so has been just fair and I need to get at it more regularly.

3300 SCM this morning
300 wu
3 x 200 pull
100 ez
40 x 50 on :50
1-16 every 4th fast
17-28 every 3rd fast
29-36 every 2nd fast
37-40 all fast
300 cd

Fast 50s were 34s, non fast 38s. Whenever I do this set I tend to fade off those last few fast ones in a row but managed to keep it together this time.

I don't know why I replied to a post in the middle of the thread.... out of practice or something.

That's pretty solid stuff, well done.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Monty, I am going to try this:

8x50, odds fly@1;00/evens dolphin kick@1;30(36/35/35/35--58/57/58/57)

Yesterday I did something similar//

Glad to hear that dev, now I'm going to start your intervention on your swim training. You have done a great job in trying to make up for lost time, getting in a lot of meters, in all of the strokes. You have brilliantly done some mega mileage for the past year, and you are able to do some sets that folks dont even dream of doing. But it is time to stop this, because I see that you want to swim meets, and actually do some decent times. I recall awhile back where you did some races in meets, and went slower than workouts, or not much better. I read those reports and bit my lip at the time, because you were wrapped up in mileage, and not really the quality.


So my suggestion going forward is to stop with all the 10x400IM's and such sets, and now begin to drill down on what will really make you a faster swimmer. You have great conditioning for a stroke that slogs, you now need to fine tune your speed, and learn to carry that to race day. Pick some goal times and only do sets that mimics that speed. When you fall off, do something shorter to hold form and speed. Of course I could do all those 400 IM's you do, but it would be kick, kick, pull fly and lazy on the other strokes. It really would do nothing for me and my actual 400IM. Right now I'm going to take it in pieces, work on goal paces there, and eventually maybe do 3 of them on longish rest, but maybe just 20 to 24 seconds slower than race pace, thus holding pretty much the same form.


I think you had some wonky races because you really dont have a race from as of yet, just your super distance form that falls apart when the gun goes off. All of us swimmers have been there, specificity in training is key for such short swim races, and all races are short except the 1500.


Anyway just my 2 cents if you really want to race faster. You have come so far in a short time, and at an age where it just isnt done. Now take it the rest of the way, and start to think about top 10 in your AG at masters meets, not just finishing 10 events all crammed together...

What Monty said.
I was a 200 flyer back in the day, and you swim way more fly than I ever did. I was of the “if you ain’t doing it as perfectly as you can, don’t do it at all” mentality.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Thanks guys, I agree with you and I'll be doing a lot more of what you are suggesting. On a plus note the races I have done with an arm that is still weak and a bad disc have been quite a bit better than training speeds. I am also doing more alternating 25 hard/easy and a lot more sprint sets.

BUT I have difficulty getting motivated by clocks, power meters, track lap times which makes chasing the pace clock difficult more than 1x per week or at best 2x per week. Even when I was last racing tris, I only took the powermeter bike out 2x per week, and would go to the track 1x per week and would never wear a GPS. I was just finding training with measurement devices very unmotivating.

So if you see me say 50 hard or 25 hard in any swim set, I am going roughly as hard as possible for that set. I just don't think that it's mentally very healthy for me to chase "meaurement of time intervals/output" in sport anymore on an ongoing basis. My business life is a continuous "measure for performance" thing day in and day out, every second of the 365 days in a year. So when I get to exercise, I just need to decouple from that mindset.

Also I don't really post any times on the fish thread, because they are so pathetically slow compared to real swimmers that the entire thing feels demoralizing and unmotivating. Instead, I can get motivation just doing the process.

I do get motivation with race times and I think those are enough. I did 5 swim meets at the end of last spring and did 3 more before Xmas and will have 7 more between Feb 1 and May 30th, so there will be clocks to chase there....plus 1-2x per week in the pool.

Also I have a lot of frustration chasing clocks on breast stroke, freestyle and back stroke because my bad leg with the nerve root compression does not go where it is supposed to. The only time it goes where it is supposed to is if I do dolphin kick or butterfly, so that's enjoyable and not frustrating other than it is tiring. But at least swimming is less frustrating than trying to jog or even walk across the hallway (you guys would really have to see me walking to understand, but I look somewhat impaired when walking....which I kind of am....which really sucks when you were always an ultra coordinated kid who could pick things up easily). So this is also an additional layer on the reluctance to try to fight my body and chase clocks. Some days my body works better some days worse. So I do the really hard sets only on days when things are working properly.

I have also enjoyed doing this set of relatively hard swimming

100's as 50 fly-back followed by breast free
50's as 25 fly-back followed by breast free


....and I guess to Monty's point of "if you really want to race faster", I suppose I am trying to first just have fun and enjoy myself and secondly see if while doing that, I can also gradually learn a new sport and get faster. But mainly I just want to enjoy the journey, because if I enjoy it, I WILL get faster (which I kind of have....I've gotten from 7:55 in my first 400IM event, to being able to hold that pace or very close for 10,000m!!!!....and I got down to 7:22 in a few months after that).


I've always been in the camp of not caring "that much" about racing faster in that, I don't want to sacrifice my personal enjoyment of this workout, for the sake of racing faster tomorrow. Hey, I'm the guy who climbed Stelvio and Gavia two days before 70.3 Worlds because I thought it would be an awesome chance since I was only 4 hours away from Austria to those climbs. My facebook profile picture is from the top of Stelvio, not from some random race finish line....that should give you a visibility into my mentality. I climbed 5000 ft up Kaloko 3 days before Ironman Hawaii in 2013. I was likely the ONLY athlete out of 2500 people in Kona doing that (actually I roped in 2 friends who also did not care that much about the actual race), but for the 10 min slower marathon I likely ran, I got an experience that most won't (I kind of raced up Kaloko and down too, not just a slog).

Generally I've found a sweet spot between workouts I want and need to do and race performance. Right now the pool time is largely an opportunity to disconnect from the pressures of life and just do whatever makes me happy and not think about professional responsibilities and associated metrics. I THINK when my health is better (arm is working full strength as I can't do a push up yet and disc is better AND I don't have responsiblity of building out a startup and putting groceries on the table for all my employees, then I'll be more willing to put the performance target higher in the sport part of my life.

Just to add to the above, today I did a set of 10x50m 25 fly-25 back hard. I took 8 breaths for "rest" and went out for the next one. No pace clock though. I should add "breast-free" 50's more often, but for some reason, I just don't do them often.

I did my second swim that included some swimming with these fins.

My 2 cents is that they felt like swimming with "small paddles for the feet", but they allow for a much more natural timing than the larger fins but I found myself going just as fast as with large fins. I did a few 200 IM's with them on....it felt awesome until it did not because of all the additional O2 that my legs and core were asking for!!!! Breast stroke still does not feel quite right with them, but that is likely because my legs are not quite doing the correct motion.

After all these years, and your honesty and openness of your posts, I think I have a good handle on what kind of athlete you are. you and I are not that much different in what motivates us at this point in our lives, so Im on board with your program.

But I just dont think when you say you dont want to chase the clock, that you realized that you substituted yardage for clock. To all of us out here, many of your workouts just seem manic, and the ultimate chasing of distance. I understand it was mentally what you wanted to do, just wasn't sure if you understood that you were still chasing something.

But that is neither here nor there, it was not a knock on you and your training. Hope you didnt take it that way. Just wanted to give you something else to chase other than yardage, and in that pursuit, you could get back to having a little competition again. You seem to have been super excited about swim meets and lots of different races, so I just took it as you were back at it, competitively speaking. If not, no worries, just moving everyday is 95% of the battle to stay healthy. The competition stuff is just a left over by product of a bygone era, where it used to be the most important thing...

Monty you are correct that I am still motivated to chase numbers of some form or the other.

Actually I know what type of numbers motivate me at what point in time and it took me maybe 20 years between 17 and 37 to figure that out. Basically I will get motivated by any number in front of me, but I realized after a few decades that I can't do it every workout every day. If you give me a pace clock I will chase it....if you tell me to do X hills at Y speed at Z incline on the treadmill, I'll try to increase X or Y or Z, sometimes all of them to my own detriment and then I can make myself frustrated not getting to a 'higher number'.

Chasing a yardage total for the year is one of those things where you don't beat yourself up every day about hitting interval times (if you miss them). It just adds up over time gradually, but many workouts can get decoupled from clock chasing and for me that's a good balance

Just the other day, with a friend we did 5x200IM on 4 minutes. My friend was doing them free and I as doing them IM. I would keep his pace on fly, fall back on during the backstroke and breast leg and close up the gap somewhat on free. It was fun to get this all done in 20 minutes. I could do that 1x per week of 10x100IM 1x per week and reallt try to push it.

What do you think of this:

10x50 fly as 25 hard-25 easy dolphin on 75 seconds

I think I could do that several time per week.

Another one that I am enjoying is 2 x 400IM or 4x200IM as 25 hard-25 super easy (well as easy as you can do on the fly, but the easy on the other strokes is going for lowering stroke count and glide). No target time, just take the 25's as hard as possible!

Oh and don't worry, your input is greatly appreciated, and I THINK you do get my mentality (if you've been around sport enough, you've seen enough poeple who lean this way).

Also can I take my swim to the level of a good Canadian national caliber masters guy in my age group? I would like to aim towards that, but I am not in a huge hurry. My goal would be to be that "competitive masters swimmer" when I retire from work and then swimming becomes my main focus in life. That's around 5-7 years away, so I have a 7 year development plan.

Ok, I'm spent.

Lunch run... 3.8miles as easy as I could run. I was a full 6bpm below my normal aerobic hr.

Evening swim:

WU:
200ez
2x50 (15s) moderate 44/45
2x100 (30) as 25LA/25RA/50sw

MS:
21x100 (20s) usrpt @1:34, failed at: #12, #17, #21
6x100 on 1:55 1:43/43/43/41/38/35

CD: 100ez

3300scy

Also, I had 5 100s in the set that were 1:32-33 in two groups 3+2.

Finally... 4mile run with 15m of tempo @7:20pace.

I'm caught up in the 100/100 challenge.

Jan 10/10, 16kscy
R/D/S: 27/27/21

it was a bit tough to fall asleep last night, and also to get up this AM. But, I made it out the door at 5:45am.

Recovery swim this morning:

3x300 swim w/fins, kick w/fins, pull
6x50 (15s) moderate build 48/48/48/47/46/45
3x100 (20s) moderate build 1:39/37/32
100ez

1600scy

Easy run planned for lunch...and taking the evening off.

Jan 11/11, 19kscy
R/D/S: 27*/28/22

*will update after lunch run.

Jan. swims = 5
runs/total days/swims = 27/28/15

so busy lately and a wacky sleep schedule since Tuesday has me feeling like I'm hungover, despite not having had any alcohol last night. Thought working out would clear it up but I still feel nauseous and out of it.

6.6 mi run
1275 yd swim

6 x [150 swim/drill mix + 50 kick]
75 goofing off cool down (dolphin dives, head-up breaststroke, sidestroke)

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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

 

Speed day. I tried not to incur any more training stress than planned for today. I was pretty run down yesterday, and a couple other days this last week. Tomorrow will be as minimal as possible.

WU: 4x100 (30s)

MS:
21x25 (15s) USRPT @17.5s (1:10/100pace), failed at #11, #15, #20
8x25 on 30s coming in at 22/23s

CD: 100ez

Bike: 22miles with 2x20 @ 95% FTP

Run: 3.9miles

Jan 12/12, 20kscy
R/D/S: 29/29/23

IM day to keep things fresh. SCY

1200 free in 16:20
400 IM K

400 IM in 6:03 on 7:00
2x200 IM 2:57s on 3:30
4x100IM 1:27-1:29 on 1:45

2x200P Free 2:28s on 3:00
3x100P Free 1:13/14 on 1:30
4x50P Free 36s on 45

4x50K 1:05 on 1:15 (can’t kick)
100 swim

4000 SCYs