24 September 2024
Since swimming Windermere on August 31st, other than racing a couple of one-day meets this month**, I have been pretty lackadaisical in my training, generally taking September as an elongated “rest month.”
I fully intended to cruise Monday evening's masters' workout ... but then ...
Ian gave an enticing main set of (mostly) broken 400s,
My teammate pointed out that I needed to lead the lane since I had gone faster when we raced the 400 on the 15th
... and so I felt obligated to push the pace so I didn't get caught!
This was hard physically, but this is exactly the kind of set I like, with four rounds of 400 done as:
1 x 400 on 6:00 - went 4:59
1 x 200 on 2:50 - 2 x 100 on 1:25 - added up to 4:53 - extra 30 seconds rest
4 x 100 on 1:25 - added up to 4:50 - extra 30 seconds rest
8 x 50 on 0:45 - added up to 4:43
While these were all far slower than the 4:35.6 I had gone at that recent meet, my workout speeds rarely approach my racing speed, even on broken efforts, especially not late at night.
I also tried something new: to breathe every two strokes throughout the set. I've known for years from watching elite swimmers that the swimming world has (mostly) moved on from bilateral breathing, but that has been so ingrained in me that I always feel out of balance when I don't do it.
I recently listened to Brett Hawke's excellent extended podcast with Irish distance stud Daniel Wiffen. In that, Mr. Wiffen talks about how he will choose which side to breathe on based upon both where he and his coach think the race will develop and where it eventually does develop, generally alternating which side he breathes on by length. I breathed to my right on odd lengths and my left on even lengths. It did feel strange, but I am sure the extra oxygen helped. I might use the next few months, when I don't have any target events, to further explore this approach.
All in all, this was a solid 4KM workout and I left thankful that both Ian and Mark nudged me to push myself harder than I had planned. That's a great example of the benefit of training with a team.
** Maidenhead on the 8th and Barnet on the 15th with one more to come in Crawley on the 28th
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