Longest Swim in Over 4 Years

I posted on Monday that I had my BIGGEST SWIMMING WEEK in a long time: 3 basic swims for 6,050 yards total.

Those were my biggest swim numbers in over 4 years. In the summer of 2015, I had a 6,900 yard week in June, which the last time I broke last week's distance. That week included 4 swims, the last of which was a half mile swim as part of the Lake Waconia Triathlon. And LOOK AT HOW TINY MY BOYS WERE WHEN WE PICKED THEM UP FROM GRANDMA AFTER THE RACE:

13-month-old Charlie!


Kisses from Grandma with 3-year-old Henry back there.

Anyway, after a solid swimming week last week, I started this week with my LONGEST INDIVIDUAL SWIM in over 4 years. (All of this is also showing that the first half of 2015 contained a lot of good swimming for me - I think I was at my fastest in the pool at that time.) On Monday, I swam 2,500 yards, and set three random PRs for the last few years: farthest swim (since Feb 2015 when I swam 2,600 yards), longest swim (by time: 51:31), and most laps recorded on my watch (only 3 laps of memory remained).

Most of my swims in the last few months have been 1,800 to 2,200 yards. Most have taken 35 to 41 minutes. And most of the time, I finish with 10 to 20 laps left in my memory of my watch. So this swim beat up those numbers nicely.

I did one of my top-5 "go to" swims, which was some broken 400s and 200s. The main set is 1,800 yards. I usually warm up and cool down for about 200 yards, but I sometimes cut those shorter in this workout. And then I added in 4x75 of kick drills. So that equalled a clean 2,500.

If you're interested in that swim workout, here it is. I like the variety in it, but yet I can remember this workout without having it written down. And when I'm wrapping up with the 3x400s and feel dead, I'm actually 2/3 done with the workout and only have shorter stuff left.

Broken 400s and 200s:
All freestyle (because that's all I can do)

Just remember that you're cutting your rest time in half (60 sec between the 400s and 200s, then 30 sec between the 3 individual 400s or 200s, then 15 sec within the 400s or 200s), and you're also cutting your intervals in half (first a 400, then 2x200, then 4x100 - then same with the 200s [200, 2x100, 4x50]). It *looks* complicated, but it's easy to remember once you think about it. You might have to write it down the first and 2nd time you try it.

200 warm up

60 sec rest

Main set: 3x400, 60 sec rest, 3x200.

Swim 400
30 sec rest
2x200 with 15 sec rest between 200s
30 sec rest
4x100 with 15 sec rest between 100s

60 sec rest

Then the same idea with the 200s:

Swim 200
30 sec rest
2x100 with 15 sec rest between 100s
30 sec rest
4x50 with 15 sec rest between 50s

60 sec rest

200 cool down

2,200 yards total
(made up of an 1,800 main set that has a 400, 3x200, 6x100, and 4x50 - nice variety)

Here was my big week last week (as seen in Monday's post) followed by a bigger week this week:

6,050 yards last week, and 6,700 yards this week!

I might try aqua jogging again shortly and/or biking. But running is still a ways off with this heel pain. (Which IS getter better day-by-day.)