So I’m doing a half in about 2 months time. My plan was to keep hammering up the total volume of my sessions in 200m intervals. I’m currently busting out 5x800 4 times a week as a standard session. In order to achieve the best time do I
A) Continue increasing my volume (5x1000, 5x1200, 5x1400 per week and so on) (may end up on Shutter Island if I do this)
B) Stay at a total volume of 4k but increase set size (5x800, 4x1000, 3x1375ish 2x2000 etc)
C) something else
Thoughts on please as I am a bit of a swimming newb
Stay at total volume- use a more diverse mix of distances and exertion efforts. And unless you actually need some sort of mental confidence about making the distance without stopping, you don’t really gain much from straight swims beyond about 500
Hows about:
Practice A
500 warm-up (easy swimming/drills)
10x300 aerobic effort on an interval that gives you 20-30 seconds of rest in between each
6x50 on 1:30 hard sprint
200 easy warm down
Practice B
500 warm up (easy/drills)
main set of
4x100
3x200
2x300
1x400 straight through, each segment should be faster than previous segment
300 kick on back with no board (this helps force proper kick technique)
8x125- each swum 25 easy, 25 hard, 25 easy, 25 hard, 25 easy (Tactical speed is a good thing in open water)
200 easy warm down
Practice C:
500 warm up easy/drills
6x500 descend 1-3 and 4-6
12x25 from a push- build throughout each 25
200 warm-down