n + 1 swim challenge (Page 8)

We need some sort of calculus derivative to infinity for you.

I'm honestly biking about as much as I can with my schedule.  I'd be more for a challenge where you post your workout and purpose of it.  I really like that about this challenge, because it makes me do two things:

1. Think about why I'm doing x workout.

2. See other workouts and how it may or may not help with my focus.  

I really disagree with this.  Threshold effort to me is a combination of your VO2 and your base.  When I do a threshold set/time trial, I run into one of two situations:

1) My breathing starts getting out of control, because I'm pushing at too high of an effort.

2) My breathing is fine, but my body is fatiguing to where I can't hold the effort anymore.

Yes working more threshold sets help with both of those some, but I find that I benefit more from focusing on one or the other, which would be done through VO2 or base sets respectively.

I point again to the polarization model the has been championed by Stephen Seiler:

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephen_Seiler/publication/46403553_What_is_best_practice_for_training_intensity_and_duration_distribution_in_endurance_athletes/file/9fcfd50ab8a2290995.pdf

Training just under threshold has the most effect on threshold, but I also wonder if that is really the best place to work at even though it is threshold performance that we want to improve. And for some of the same reasoning you have.

I'm swimming after work, so I'll post my set now:

WU: 400m
6x50 Drill/Swim

Block 1 (400 m)
4 x 50m (1 Hard, 3Easy)10-15 sec rest interval
1 x 200m (Race pace)
1:00 rest

Block 2 (400 m)
4 x 50m (2 Hard, 2 Easy) – 10-15 sec rest interval
1 x 200m (Race pace)
1:00 rest

Block 3 (400 m)
4 x 50m (3 Hard, 1 Easy) – 10-15 sec rest interval
1 x 200m (Pull & Paddles)
1:00 rest

Block 4 (400m)
4 x 50m (ALL 4 HARD!) – 10-15 sec rest interval
1 x 200m (Pull & Paddles)
1:00 rest

200m CD

2500m total

This workout is supposed to help with the middle of your swim.  In an Olympic I can definitely catch myself in the middle of a funk during the swim where my effort starts to trail off.  This is supposed to help you keep sharp with the varying efforts that get harder as you reach the end of the main set.

 I made my n + 1 goal--sweet! 17, 350 yds for the week, which is my biggest week so far this year. 

I totally stole Arend's set from this morning with much different times and mine was in yards. I didn't make it back up the ladder, as I got to the pool too late and it closed :(  I'm going to try this one again though because it was fun and went pretty fast. Thanks Arend!

I am wondering if maybe we could come up with a challenge for race season that is intention and purpose based, but not specific to any one discipline.

Something like us stating our number of sessions for the upcoming week, ie 4/4/4, and then stating the purpose and workouts each day in the thread.  I really like seeing what others are doing and why--I think that can spark some interesting discussion. I actually think it would be good to do it without a specific discipline focus because it might lend itself to us thinking about and discussing how training in the individual sports imapcts overall performance, fatigue and recovery and thinking about that as a whole.  I can tend to get a little carried away in season, and that might be really helpful.

Thoughts?

Nice!  I found it really made the time go by quickly too.  

I do a lot of math in my head when I swim and this workout had lots of it.  By the time I got to the second set of 50s I knew I was going to finish up at 6:40:30 AM.  :)

Great swim, Elesa...wow, that's like double my biggest week ever.  :-/

If you can get the hang of it with swimming, the others will be much easier as they are much less technically demanding. I mostly just use bunch of aerobic conditioning (as in ride lots) and then figure out what type of hard I'd like to focus on at times for those. Swimming has those too, but is a bit more complex. Still trying to put things together to remember it more easily.

4,000 tonight.

Main set:

4 x 100 desc

1 x 400

8 x 50 desc by 2

1 x 400

4 x 100 k

4 x 100 best ave

Little more rest between every block of 400 too. Thought I should get some more continuous swimming tonight, so found one with the 400's. And also had the faster sections to push. I like trying to have some fast swimming in there every time. Even if it's just a few fast 25's. 

It's a Dale sighting! 

Good to see you're getting to the pool, even if it's an n-1 week.  Long days and call make it tough.  We'll cut you some slack, Doc.

Week 2: 1/7, 2350 yds
Purpose: recovery and maintaining feel
I swam the 50s hard, everything else was EZ (thanks Matt and Ben)
all the kicks were f/d/f/d

300 S
100K
300 P
100K
5 x 50
100K
5 x 50
100K
300 P
100K
5 x 50
100K
200P

No "+1" for me this week...I couldn't squeeze in the 1K swim after my long run yesterday (we got a bit of a late start over to the gym ).

I'm set up to jump in volume a bit this week...moving up to about 5KM/week. 

Question/request for the group, going with the "have a plan" thought to your swim workout...other than "get my butt back in the pool and swim" I haven't put much thought into it, so I'd like your feedback on planning my swim sets.  My normal swim schedule is:

Monday 6 AM - 25-30 minutes in a 20y pool, followed by my upper body ST routine (if it matters, I'm in Friel's Maximum Strength phase, plus I do some of stuff in Sheila T's book - swim cords and such)
Tuesday 4 PM:  50-60 minutes in 25 SCM pool, desperately trying to keep up with my 11 YO daughter on her easy day
Friday 6 AM:  70-80 minutes 25 SCM Masters...I did 2300 last week and will continue to build this out to the full 90 min
Saturday 8:30 AM:  maybe a short 10-15 min cool down/recovery swim after my long run, time depending

Obviously, Friday is spoken for by my Masters coach, and Saturday's swim isn't long enough to get any meaningful work in.  So that leaves Monday and Tuesday to try to structure some swim sets on my own.  So far, I've done some speed work on Mondays and longer intervals on Tuesdays, but I'm really open to suggestions.  Thanks!!

If it were me, I would probably do what it sounds like you have been doing--shorter, harder sets exclusively on Monday; 40, 60y repeats--20yd pool, what do you do with that? ;)

Tuesday I might do a majority of longer sets close to but below threshold (20 x 100 w/10 RI) with a few something fasts (10 x 25) in the middle or at the end (I'm trying Ben and Matt), or a ladder (Arend's set from the other day was awesome, btw). 

That looks solid!

I rarely play with my pace within a repeat. I should probably try to incorporate more of that too. 

One thing I heard (I think it was G Rodriguez) was that it's good to practice some sets going out hard--first 25-50, and then settling into something longer--to try to simulate the start of a race.  I can get that same gassed feeling you are describing.  It seems like we should practice sets once in a while that help us learn how to bring it back under control if that happens.

I think you are doing it right.  For a 30 min swim I would do a very short warmup and then stick to 20s, 40s and 60s at a fairly high intensity.  That brings back memories BTW, I spent most of my teenage years training in a 20 yard pool!  We generally did 60s instead of 50s and 120s instead of 100s.  I was really good at turns.  

That's something nice to get to eventually, but really just learn how to execute swim sets first before doing something like this. Also work on becoming a lot faster. There aren't a whole lot of BOP or MOP swimmers who are worth drafting off of, and this is what that tactic is for. To break away or exhaust someone not as strong or keep up with someone who is a little better. Knowing how to do this should come much easier after learning how to perform the various types of sets well.

That looks good.  

On the swim lingo theme, when you say 4 x 150 build do you mean that you get faster each 150 or you get faster within the 150 itself?  If you mean that you get faster each 150 (for example, 1. 2:30, 2. 2:25, 3. 2:20, 4. 2:15) then that would be considered descending and I would write it as 4 x 150 descend 1-4.  If you mean that within the 150 you went faster (ie. the first 50 in :50 then the next 50 in :48 then the last in :45) that is a build and I would write it as 4 x 150 build by 50s.

I do post a number of things on the boards about what I do. Swimming and otherwise. More typical lately would be to cut all these intervals in half and do twice as many for the same total.