Swim Advice Please

[katinthehat]

So I'm training for my first Olympic swim at the end of September and following a plan from a book.  I like most of the book, but I'm really starting to question the swim plans.  I think it worked well for the sprints I've used it for, but I feel you can fake a sprint swim.  I don't think you can fake your way through an Oly swim (or at least, I can't.)

The plan has you swimming twice a week, with your biggest swim being 1500 (you repeat this distance all three weeks before the race, so six swims of 1500.)  The swims follow this general layout:

200 warm up
4 x 25 drills
Main Set
4 x 25 kick
200 cool down

The main sets are either 3 x 300 with various amounts of rest or 4 x 100 and 7 x 75.

However, if my biggest concern is just swimming the 1.5K of the race without exiting the water feeling totally wiped out, do you think it's a better idea if I just do a straight main set of 800-1000 yards without bother to break it up like the plan calls for?  (The different main sets are written as threshold intervals, lactate intervals and builds/descends.)

And in a perfect week, I'd make it to the pool twice to do this kind of workout and to the lake once for an OWS but the way it's been in reality, I've been able to do one pool swim and one OWS a week.

[joenali]

I rarely if ever do a straight swim, unless I'm doing a test set, like a 1000 or a 30 minute swim. You should be fine with interval main sets.

[kams]

Ditto joenali - we top out at 200s in masters

[joenali]

On your OWS, you might want to practice the distance a few times, but it's not necessary in the pool.

[Susie]

Jun 29, 2013 19:12:05 GMT -5 katinthehat said:

The swims follow this general layout:

200 warm up
4 x 25 drills
Main Set
4 x 25 kick
200 cool down

The main sets are either 3 x 300 with various amounts of rest or 4 x 100 and 7 x 75.

I follow a similar pattern in my workouts, maybe minus the kick before the cool down, and with more yards in the main set - but same general idea.  On long days, I do repeats of 300's, maybe 500's, but I almost never swim straight.  Often, my repeats are 100s, 200s on various intervals.  Don't think of it like doing only track workouts to train for a half; it's not really the same as running/biking.  

However, if my biggest concern is just swimming the 1.5K of the race without exiting the water feeling totally wiped out, do you think it's a better idea if I just do a straight main set of 800-1000 yards without bother to break it up like the plan calls for? 

No.  Straight swimming tends to be slow swimming, so it doesn't challenge you much.  No challenge, no improvement.  More higher quality yards will benefit you more.

In short, stay the course!

[katinthehat]

alright, I'm going to trust you guys

I did a half mile OWS Friday night and want to build up to a mile by the end of July and then maybe even 1.5 miles by the end of August.

But I'll keep to the shorter intervals in the pool.