Work your Weakness aka "Hey, Mike, STFU!" Challenge (Page 43)

Thursday six of us did the 5K turkey trot, and it was awesome! I ended up 397/469...not DFL!! I didn't keep up with the kid, but that's ok--she was fast. Finished the day off with some great food and family time. Overall, one of our best Thanksgivings!

Thursday had no Masters session, so put this in instead. Wasn't sure I could pull it off with 3 of those in otherwise. There is no pace clock, only an office-type clock where it's hard enough to see the minute & hour hands. From what Bo had posted he's done before, figured this was swum rather fast, but not truly all-in sprints every time. Maybe not for someone of my ability yet. I have done :14's recently, but know I can do limited 15's on command unless exhausted, so went at what should have been :16 effort. Faster than what I swim just about everything else at. Went with ~10 seconds of rest as Bo was Sending on :25, in on :15. Main set time was in the neighborhood of 22-23 minutes. :25 send-off would be almost 21', :30 would be 25'. I just went straight through on it to see how it went. Others may break it up into groups of 10 with an easy in there, or maybe even 5 if they're much newer.

That many reps is a bit daunting, but they're only 1 length of the pool so they tick off rather fast. Definitely gives a lot of practice swimming fast and also gives ample opportunity to correct things throughout the set. I find that harder to do with more continuous swimming. Things definitely were getting tired in the second half of the set, but it felt different than usual. Probably shouldn't be surprising when considering these are more like running walls or windsprints at the end of basketball or soccer practice as opposed to say 800 repeats on a track. Caught myself a few times just trying to put out the effort instead of also making sure to keep form up (namely going around the barrel first). But *think* I didn't get too far along before catching that. In the late ones that was getting hard anyway as it was becoming more challenging to hold things well out at the edges of my range.

I did notice that I held positioning much closer, if not the same as when i do the sprints in masters. And I believe this is a big part of doing the fast workouts and where something like this one will be of benefit. For me, along with the body position (more "downhill") comes a better entry and into the catch. So I had a lot of time spent in this. Even the late ones that weren't quite optimal were probably still fairly good for what I am capable of. This feeling held into a good part of today's workout as well. Had this feeling of wanting to go. It may have slipped a little, but not bad considering. I didn't push as I wasn't sure of the effects such a workout would have on me in the few days following. Certainly going to look at doing it (or similar) again. Think it would go even better with a pace clock, but not sure how to do that yet outside of masters.

Thursday six of us did the 5K turkey trot, and it was awesome! I ended up 397/469...not DFL!! I didn't keep up with the kid, but that's ok--she was fast. Finished the day off with some great food and family time. Overall, one of our best Thanksgivings!

I would like to try a set like this at some point. 

One of the conflicting things that I have read is that you need to swim fast in order to learn how to swim fast v. you shouldn't do (should severely limit) anaerobic sets as a triathlete.  I am guessing these are speeds that are (much) faster than your CSS, right?  Are they anaerobic, or are they short enough and you're getting enough recovery that they aren't?  Is the goal here to try to fix technique stuff by swimming fast rather than anything to do with your LT?  Apologies for the basic questions, but I have a hard time with understanding the balance and goals in the context of swimming.

Question for the runners in the group....anyone want to school me a bit on running efficiently down hills? Somehow it "seems" like that should be easy but I find down hill running incredibly challenging. I know I "brake" a bit - especially on steeper slopes - which is not particularly helpful. I struggle with feeling like I should just "let go" a bit and holding back so as not to face plant.

For lower grade hills, might sound a big crazy, but I'll actually rotate everything around so that the ground still seems flat. Gravity will make it seem like something is pulling faster (because it is). When it gets more steep I can't do that so much and just absorb it as best I can. There is going to be some braking action on this as I just can't keep up the foot speed to keep on going faster, but I do the best I can to get rid of the jolting impact. Usually by trying to absorb it longer while also continuing through the stride, if that makes any sense.

RE:  50 x 25 swim set...that doesn't sound that hard (I mean, c'mon, it's ONLY 1250...) but in my Masters class last year we did 10 x 25 on :30 at the end of our ~ 1500 main set and it about killed me.  I was coming in around :21-22 (for 25 meters) so you would think that would be plenty of rest, but uh, not really.

RE:  downhill running...I struggle with my form, too, generally heel-striking a little and resisting gravity.  It doesn't help being 6'4", 200, with my high center of gravity.  I've tried the quick cadence...it certainly helps but it's REALLY unnatural for me; I tend to average around 80 on the flats (a little faster when racing).  Getting to even 90 feels like I'm running like penguin.

It's different doing it the entire way from the start as opposed to only at the end. And since Adrienne hasn't chimed back in yet, "HTFU pu see"

I've been quiet over the Holiday weekend, so here we go:

Turkey Trot had some fast runners, and I came up short in my quest for pie.  At least I got some good speedwork out of it. Saturday I had a 2x20' run workout, which was the first time I've done that while running.  It hurts just as much as the bike workout does (if not a little more).  My long run featured 14 miles with 12 of it being 7:12 pace.  I forgot my gels for the run and didn't get started until near lunch, so I was feeling a little low on energy towards the end, but I made it through.

December is when I get to test myself.  My final build to my peak before taper. My long runs are estimated to be 19.2, half mary race, 21.8, 23.  

I don't know exactly what my CSS would be, but rather certain this was quite a bit faster. Even with compensating time for the turns, this was still faster than what I regularly swim at even on fast sets (which is kinda of the point). But even though it's fast swimming, the overall size of it matched with the rests being short & frequent enough, I don't know that that going very anaerobic is a concern. Not much of one at least. The focus is more on going fast. Not quite all in, but doing so a lot so that it becomes more natural. You get used to going that faster pace (and associated form) much deeper into a set with the short intervals, and therefore more used to doing it in general.

Also, help me a bit.   The only time I have done 25s is at the end of my main sets.  I'm usually in the low 18.XX, but I think my fastest has only been mid 17. What kind of structure for this would you recommend for me? Shoot for 20? RI?

It's different doing it the entire way from the start as opposed to only at the end. And since Adrienne hasn't chimed back in yet, "HTFU pu see"

Thanks for holdin' down the fort. :)

This is more about repeatability, so the 18's would be more appropriate. I'd probably try 19-20 sec, leaving on :30, and see how it goes. I'm not exactly sure how the pace is based, but the larger goal is to get in a lot of faster paced swimming. Do note his suggestion of 3 x 20 instead of 1 x 50, with a bit more of a break between the big sets. Should help clear your head a bit.

As for how often, I might try it again in a few more weeks to see how it goes again. I have masters 3x a week plus the amount of riding which throws things off a bit. Might try working up to every other week or so, depending on what I think I need at the time. I don't know about more often as I'm not sure I want to be overly fixated an any one particular workout. He may have done more, but has also swam a lot in the past. I'm doing several times what a more normal triathlete would do, and he used to be 2-3 times as much as that.