A "New" Swim Workout, and More Improvements in the Pool

I was digging through some old posts on my blog, and I came across this swim workout from 5 years ago that I did with "the gang" that I used to swim with a lot (before kids). So I did this workout last Saturday. It seems complex, but you'll see the pattern soon enough:

- 100 warm up. [SKIPPED THIS]
- 5x100, easy, last 25 at 90%, 12 seconds rest between: 1:26, 1:33, 1:34, 1:34, 1:33.
- 30 seconds rest.

- 350 pulling: 1:34, 1:39, 1:38, 0:47.
- 30 seconds rest.
- 4x100, easy, last 50 at 90%, 15 seconds between: 1:31, 1:34, 1:33, 1:30.
- 1:00 rest.

- 250 pulling: 1:34, 1:36, 0:50.
- 1:00 rest.
- 3x100 easy, last 75 at 90%, 20 seconds rest: 1:29, 1:30, 1:31.
- 0:45 rest.

- 150 pulling: 1:34, 0:50.
- 0:50 rest.
- 2x100, 90% effort, 25 seconds rest: 1:25, 1:26.
- 0:40 rest.

- 50 pulling: 0:45.
- 0:50 rest.
- 100 ALL OUT: 1:21
- 0:50 rest.

- 100 cool down: 1:43

2400 yards total (would have been 2500 had I done a WU 100).

In the end, that's 15 100 repeats and 800 of pulling. I haven't pulled that much in years! Well, probably since I did this workout 5 years ago.

It's not super fair to compare these times between these 5 years, but I did anyway: when looking at the groups of 100 repeats, I averaged 1.4 secs faster (per 100) over the 5x100, 2.5 sec faster over the 4x100, 3.7 sec faster over the 3x100, 8.5 sec faster in over the 2x100, and 6 sec faster in the "all out" 100. Nice.


THEN ON WEDNESDAY, it was time to do some 9x200 with my new CSS pace. The last few times I did 200s, it was with my 1:35 CSS goal pace, but this was the first time going for 1:30s. I knew I wouldn't be able to hit that all the way through, so I told myself I'd be happy with even ONE 100 out of each 200 being at 1:30 pace.

Here's what I'd done in the recent past for my 9x200 workout:

11/13/14: 3:05.24 ave (30 rest)
11/23/14: 3:09.89 ave (20 rest - shortening the rest makes a big difference!)
12/18/14: 3:07.30 ave (20 rest)

So yeah, I wasn't going to hit 3:00 flat for these. I took a FEW seconds longer rest (22-23 secs) because I was still on the verge of death at 20 secs after the 3rd or 4th. Here's what I did:

1:30.1, 1:33.4 = 3:03.5
1:32.1, 1:31.1 = 3:03.2
1:29.9, 1:32.5 = 3:02.4
1:29.5, 1:32.7 = 3:02.2
1:31.2, 1:31.6 = 3:02.8
1:29.6, 1:31.1 = 3:00.7
1:28.9, 1:33.2 = 3:02.1
1:29.8, 1:31.4 = 3:01.2
1:28.5, 1:29.2 = 2:57.7

Average: 3:01.76 / 200!!

Sweet. Six seconds faster than last time, and 8 secs faster than the time before that!


FINALLY, I DID THAT 4x400 WORKOUT AGAIN TODAY. It's the one where the first 100 of each 400 is at 85%, the 2nd 100 at 90%, the 3rd 100 at 95%, and the 4th 100 nearly "all out." Today's swim was brutal (in a good way). Here's how this workout stacked up against the last few times of doing it:

10/30/14: 6:14.9 ave
12/15/14: 6:12.1 ave
01/10/15: 6:10.0 ave!

If you had told me 3 months ago that I'd be swimming at the pace I am now, I'd have called you crazy. If you want to make gains, just keep hitting the pool! You may gain slower or faster than I've been, but you WILL get faster if you spend more time at it!!

Related: here's a post from last Nov with a lot of the swim workouts that I've started doing, and here's my intro to "CSS" training (which I've been enjoying lately).