Oh, swimming, how I love thee. NOT! I’d be lying if I said that biking and running didn’t get boring sometimes. Heck, even doing strength training can get lame at times. But swimming is so lonely. I guess it’s not so bad when it’s a shorter workout and the sets are broken up into smaller bits. Then it makes it a little more interesting. Training with a group probably makes it better too because there’s a little bit of competition to keep you entertained. So, why am I venting about swimming? Well, today was my last long swim for my B2B (Beach 2 Battleship) training. By ‘long’ swim I mean 7 sets of 600s (12 laps, down and back = 1). It usually happens where I’ll get to the 5th set and I just want to quit. And, I almost did today. But, I took a little break and chit-chatted with the only other person in the pool at the time for about 5 minutes and then continued on with my 6th set which I still did half-assed. I continued on with the 7th because I knew that this was the last time, for a while anyway, that I would have to do this training number. These were my times for each set:
Set 1 - 10:30
Set 2 - 10:15
Set 3 - 10:03
Set 4 - 9:49
Set 5 - 10:08
Set 6 - 15:56 – First 25m was breast stroke, 2nd 25m was back stroke, freestyle rest
Set 7 - 10:21
While I was at work taking a quick break I read this article about swimming faster called ‘Break the Rules to Swim Faster’. Of course I was interested because 1) anything I can do to make my swim get over faster is much appreciated, 2) I’ll take any tidbits on swimming faster because, well, I’d like to swim faster. Just like I’d like to bike faster and run faster, and 3) making improvements also keeps me motivated to keep going. I was particularly drawn to the pieces about forgetting about perfect form and forgetting about reducing stroke count. The 36-week Ironman training plan from Trifuel.com that I’m following mentions that a lot in the swim practices. I’ve tried to keep perfect form when it tells me to and I’ve only tried a couple of times to reduce my stroke count. It’s too hard to keep track of my laps and how many strokes I'm doing. I pretty much have a one column spreadsheet in my head and it’s not expandable to two columns unless there’s only 2 or 3 lines max needed. So, I gave up on the stroke counting. And, I’m glad to know that it’s not that important to my overall gains in the speed department. As for perfect form, I do try to maintain it even if I’m swimming fast. I always thought that if I did perfect form then I would glide through the water better. But, from the article is seems that just swimming as fast as you can is better than slowing down to try and maintain perfect form. What the heck, I'll give it a try.
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