Week IM – 24: Structured Swims

(February 2010, Week 2)

I broke 12 hours training for the first time this week.

I had two good swims during the week. The past two years, while training for triathlons, I’d been aiming for a distance and nothing more. I realise now why : 1) my swim times were never great and 2) why I sometimes found swimming boring.

Structured workouts which break the swim into various sets / distances definitely make it easier to do longer distances. I’d do maybe 30-40% more in the same time following structured workouts this year. They’re a lot more interesting also – when they’re varied. I’ve been taking the workouts straight from here.

The two sessions I did this week were:

	Monday
Warm up	200 Swim           2 x 75 Kick
Main Set	500 Swim @80-85% 2 x 250 @80-85% w/20 sec rest 5 x 100 @80-85% w/10 sec rest
Cool Down	200 easy
Distance	1.95Km

 

	Wednesday
Warm up	200 Swim @ 60-65%
Main Set	800 Swim @80 5 x 300  w/30 sec rest after each
Cool Down	200 easy swim
Distance	2.4Km

(Sometimes I skimp on the warm down if I’m short of time. That’s why the Distance is less than the addition of the set)

On Saturday I went out with Belpark on this 90Km spin.

I tagged on a 17km loop for a warm down afterwards so it ended up at 107Km. The roads were quite wet and muddy, so we all ended up literally covered in mud from head to toe: