50x50 in the Pool? No Thanks!

Recently, I was tweeted this link to a swim workout from a twitter buddy:

Here's a link to that article. This is a bit of the freestyle workout:

Main Set: 50×50 (aka 10 rounds of 5×50) All on 50” or 10” rest (50” is lowest interval, take 10” if you’re touching the wall past 45”)

• #1: Easy
• #2: Breathe every 3rd stroke
• #3: 25 fast/25 easy
• #4: Breathe every 5th stroke
• #5: FAST!

There was NO way I was going to do 50x50 when my longest recent swim was just 2000 yards, so I told myself I'd try 25x50 yards in sets of 5 like they say above. My notes / thoughts on the sets:

• #1: Easy: The first one was easy "for a 50," but the rest were EASY easy. I needed the rest!

• #2: Breathe every 3rd stroke: I do this anyway, so it was just a moderate 50 "normally."

• #3: 25 fast/25 easy: This was a fun set - I liked the quick speed with a short rest.

• #4: Breathe every 5th stroke: This SUCKED much more than I thought it was going to. I was BEGGING for the wall on each length to get an extra breath. I think it was probably good for me to break the "breathe every 3rd" norm.

• #5: FAST! Fast is always fun. Good way to end each set of 5.

I actually was wrapping up set number 4 when I thought "I can do 6 sets." So I did 30x50. And the great thing about this workout was I felt like I could do another set after that too! But I didn't want to overdo it, so I just tried out 30x50 to start. (It's been a few years since I did 50 repeats like that.)

I ran my watch just to help keep track of each set of 5, but I didn't really care what times I was swimming. I did the 5 sets in 4:15, 4:21, 4:25, 4:35, 4:35, and 4:34 (which is about how I swim interval sets like that: slowing up for a bit, then holding on to 1 speed). I tried to note what the final FAST 50s of each set were - they were roughly 42, 41, 41, 42, 40, and 40 seconds.

So check out all the details of that swim workout here. Gotta be ready to take on Devon in the pool in a week or 2...