Train with Terry – A "Ladder Set with Gears" Practice

In the last installment of my on-line swim diary, I reported on how encouraging my return from surgery had been. I was swimming surprisingly well, attributable to the fact that my performance is influenced far more by efficiency and effectiveness than by sheer fitness. As it happens I was a bit premature in my optimism about how smoothly the physical part of my recovery was going and immediately after publishing that article, I went through a week where I was feeling so physically debilitated that I withdrew from the USMS Colonies Zone Championship meet. Due to carelessness, I also missed the entry deadline for USMS National Championships. So April will now be devoted entirely to rebuilding my strength and I’ll be focusing on a 2-mile open water swim race in Austin TX in early May, and on Canadian Masters Nationals May 21-24 in Edmonton. I’ll swim an 800-meter race on Friday, the 21st then hop a flight to Calgary to lead a TI workshop over the weekend, flying back to Edmonton Sunday night to swim a 1500-meter race on Monday morning.

My training was interrupted by an Easter Week pool closure at the SUNY campus in New Paltz. Here is my first “rebuilding practice,” following that swimming hiatus.

Tuesday April 13 @ SUNY
4000 yards with Gunks Masters

This was a pretty informal session, with many swimmers beginning training for open water season, following a taper for Zones, the season-ending meet for most. After our usual choose-your-own warmup, the coach said “Well, I guess you can do 10 x 300…or something else if you don’t feel like it.” After negotiating with my lane mates, I decided to do a variation on the 10 x 300 – a “ladder” set in which each “rung” would total 300 yards, but broken into repeats of varying length – with a super-slow 50 for recovery following each round.

Warmup – I swam a relaxed 500, alternating 50 yds of FR with 50 of BK, maintaining a constant 14 spl on both.

Main Set
6 x 50 on :45 – I swam at relaxed “still warming up” pace, just allowing myself a few seconds rest between 50s, coming in at about 42 seconds. I swam each 50 at 25 strokes (12+13)

4 x 75 on 1:10 – I continued at the same effort level and stroke count of 13 spl. My pace was a tiny bit faster than on the 50s, averaging 62 seconds per 75.

3 x 100 on 1:30 – I began to raise the pace a bit, by shifting into “Gears” mode. I swam the 1st 100 @ 14spl, the 2nd @ 15spl, the 3rd @ 16spl, going a bit faster on each and finishing the set at 1:20, a considerably brisker pace than on the 50s and 75s.

2 x 150 on 2:15 – I continued in Gears mode, swimming each 150 as 50 @ 14spl + 50 @ 15spl + 50 @ 16spl. The effect was to increase my pace on each 50, swimming fastest on the final 50 in each. I maintained the pace I’d set on the 100s, finishing in 2:00.

1 x 300. Gears mode again: 100 @ 14spl + 100 @ 15spl + 100 @ 16spl. I continued at the pace of 40 seconds per 50 I had been maintaining since the 100s.

1 x 300, as above, on 5:00 but slightly faster.
2 x 150 , as above on 2:30 but slightly faster.
3 x 100, as above on 1:40 but slightly faster.
4 x 75 – returning to recovery pace, as above, on 1:15
6 x 50 – recovery pace, as above, on :50.

Notes

Including the recovery 50 that I swam between each 300 yd round, this set added up to 3500 yards, which would make it a fairly good set length for open water races of 1 to 2.4 miles (Ironman distance). Here are some details of my thinking while swimming it:

1. The “active rest” 50 that I swam between rounds of 300 yards allowed me to put a bit more effort and mental intensity into the 300-yd set. As soon as I finished the final repeat in each round, I immediately pushed off for a superslow 50 BK. I chose BK because it gives my “freestyle muscles” a rest. Upon finishing the 50, I would start the next round of 300 within 15 seconds.
2. I set my interval within each round at 45 seconds per 50 as I ascended the ladder (going from 6 x 50s to 1 x 300) and increased it to 50 seconds per 50 as I descended the ladder (going from the 2nd 300 back down to the final round of 6 x 50.) This helped me swim at a faster average pace in the second half of the set. I try to do this habitually – i.e. always swim progressively stronger as I go through a set, but not always with more rest; indeed sometimes with less rest!) as a way of rehearsing the negative-split racing I always do.
3. As I increased my stroke count from 14 to 15 to 16 spl, I tried to maintain the same overall effort level. I swam faster as I added strokes, but purely as an exercise in coordination, rather than by “going harder.” I swam the 2nd half of the set at constant effort as well, but swam faster than on the first half by increasing the pressure I felt on my hand/forearm on each stroke.