22 April 2022
I figured I'd build on yesterday's ambitious goal setting by raising the bar on both intensity and duration for my Friday morning workout, aiming for 5,000 yards with two main sets after my standard long warmup:
3 x 300 Test Set
Broken 200 IM set
My warmup speeds were adequate, showing a little rust getting going on my 4th swim of the week:
100s free - 1:11, 1:10, 1:07, 1:03
100s IM kick on back - 1:30, 1:29+, 1:27, 1:25
50s build IM order - 31+, 33, 39, 30+
Main Set #1 - 3 x 300 Test Set
This is the Dave Salo test set to determine your aerobic threshold pace and "base pace interval." As my last performance two weeks ago was essentially a "rested effort" coming after a taper meet and three easy days of swimming, my goal was to see if I could repeat that performance in the midst of my heavier training load.
My best performance ever on this was back in December of 2016, when I went 3:08+, 3:09, 3:08+
2016-01-04 - 3:16, 3:15, 3:14
2018-11-23 - 3:25, 3:22+, 3:19+
2019-08-01 - 3:34, 3:33, 3:30
2019-12-02 - 3:27, 3:29, 3:25
2020-02-03 - 3:18, 3:17, 3:19
2020-08-02 - 3:22, 3:26, 3:25
2020-09-17 - 3:24, 3:25, 3:24
2021-08-29 - 3:20, 3:19+, 3:20
2021-10-03 - 3:16, 3:16+, 3:16
2021-11-09 - 3:16, 3:16+++++, 3:18
2021-12-03 - 3:17, 3:16, 3:15
2022-02-09 - 3:32+, 3:23, 3:25
2022-02-25 - 3:17, 3:16, 3:16
2022-04-07 - 3:13, 3:13, 3:13
2022-04-07 - 3:12, 3:13, 3:16+
That third one hurt ... big time, a definite "bonk" and seizing up of my muscles on the last ~150 yards of the set, but it was a hurt so good kind of feeling. I followed that up with a relatively standard active recovery set I do of 7 x 50 on an ascending interval from 0:35 up to 1:05.
Grant Hackett 200 IM Pace Set Variation
This deceptively simple set has been floating around the swimming world for many years and attributed to Australian freestyle legend Grant Hackett.
16 x 50: in a pattern of 1 fast followed by 3 moderate
12 x 50: in a pattern of 1 fast followed by 2 moderate
8 x 50: in a pattern of 1 fast followed by 1 moderate
4 x 50: all fast
I didn't quite have enough time to do this, so I created this variation, going IM order each round on the fast efforts:
4 x 125: on 2:00, going 50 fast followed by 75 moderate
was 0:30 (fly), 0:32 (back), 0:37 (breast), 0:30 (free) on the fast efforts
1 x 50: scull/drill on about 1:30
4 x 100: on 1:40, going 50 fast followed by 50 moderate
was 0:30 (fly), 0:31+ (back), 0:37+ (breast), 0:29 (free) on the fast efforts
1 x 50: scull/drill on about 1:30
4 x 75: on 1:20, going 50 fast followed by 25 moderate
was 0:30 (fly), 0:32 (back), 0:37+ (breast), 0:28 (free) on the fast efforts
1 x 50: scull/drill on about 1:30
4 x 50: on 1:00 fast
was 0:29 (fly), 0:31 (back), 0:37+ (breast), 0:28+ (free) on the fast efforts
I concluded with a longer active recovery set of 9 x 50, hitting the 5K mark in right around 90 minutes. I was very happy with the recovery I made after bonking on the last 300, as these IM efforts felt strong and powerful. Getting a little "Eye of the Tiger" mojo (or jaguar in the picture below) from these last two weeks of training!
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