Terry's "Zero-Cancer Zone" Practices

[terry]

Wed 8 March 1800m (25m pool) at Nassau County Aquatic Center

Today is probably my final practice before the 1650y race I'll swim at New England Masters Championship at Harvard on Saturday. I'll rest the next two days -- although I will take a 60-minute yoga class each day.

I did a single set -- a Distance Pyramid, starting with 50m repeats, progressing to a 200m repeat, then reducing distance to 50m repeats again. I held constant tempo as distance increased, with a goal of also holding SPL constant. Then I increased tempo each time distance decreased, challenging myself to continue holding SPL constant.

Here's the set:
Tempo held constant at 1.18 sec/stroke from 50s to 200.
4 x 50 @ 1.18 . I took 38 strokes on the first 50, and improved to 35 strokes by the 4th.
3 x 100 On this set, though distance was 100% greater and tempo the same, I managed to bring SPL down to 17 by the 3rd 100.
2 x 150 I held 17 SPL, with tempo still at 1.18.
1 x 200 I held 17 SPL--and found it easiest of all repeats so far, though it was my longest swim and tempo was still 1.18.
2 x 150 - I increased tempo to 1.17 and maintain 17 SPL. This wasn't difficult at all.
3 x 100 - Increased tempo to 1.16 and still felt quite controlled, holding 17 SPL.
4 x 50 - I increased tempo by .01 each 50. Tempos were 1.15, 1.14, 1.13, 1.12 and I managed to maintain 17 SPL (actually 16+18 for average of 17) on these 50s. This took concentration.

Originally Posted by terry

Lars
First and only entrant in my impromptu little contest. And your calculation is correct. You win the video analysis. Post a clip of 20 to 40 seconds on the Forum--in its own thread on the freestyle conference and I'll post my analysis.

Wow, that's so cool!! I must find a way to get myself taped in a pool (the local pool doesn't allow it) so it might take a few weeks before I can post a video. Is that okay?

I would guess the tempo would be.83...

[CoachSuzanne]

Originally Posted by terry

Lars
First and only entrant in my impromptu little contest. And your calculation is correct. You win the video analysis. Post a clip of 20 to 40 seconds on the Forum--in its own thread on the freestyle conference and I'll post my analysis.

Congrats to Lars...although I shared this thread with my athletes and we identified one slightly more accurate way to determine your tempos with no additional information that what you gave.

if he posts his answers and his explanation, could you find time to do another video analysis? :)

There's a slight error in the math. You should add seven to the stroke count instead of subtracting it from the time.

In Terry's first 50, he had 30 strokes plus 7 beats during push off and turn. That's 37 beats on the Tempo Trainer in 48 seconds, or 1.3 seconds per stroke. By the last 50 he increased his tempo to about 0.97 seconds per stroke. (It was probably 1.0 or 0.95 sec/stroke, with some measurement error.) If I had to guess the full set, I'd say he did 1.3, 1.2, 1.1, 1.0, 0.95

By the same math, Joe had a tempo of 1.6 in round one, going to 1.2 in round 5. (Probably 1.6, 1.5, 1.4, 1.3, 1.2). He had a slower tempo, but made up for it with his crazy SPL. How is that even possible?

Originally Posted by terry

Sunday 6 Mar 1000y at North Shore Aquatic Center, St Pete FL

At the conclusion of a weekend workshop at the North Shore pool, I had only 20 minutes to swim before the pool closed.
Along with TI Coach Joe Novak--who I coached 20 years ago at West Point--I swam 4 rounds of 5 x 50.
We each held a consistent stroke count throughout the set.
For Joe that was 8+9 strokes. For me it was 14+16 SPL.
We each descended each round of 5 x 50 (i.e. swimming each successive 50 faster than the one before).
We also made each successive round slightly faster than the preceding.
Joe--despite taking 13 fewer strokes/50 also swam strikingly faster than me.
Of course he's 40 and I'm nearly 65. And he swam 44.0 sec for 100y free while I was coaching him, while my best for 100y was 10 sec slower and occurred 45 years ago.

However I was exceedingly pleased with how I swam
My first 50 in the first round was 48 sec.
My final 50 in the 4th round was 38 sec.
And I took 30 strokes in both.

Joe's 1st 50 in 1st round was 38 sec.
His final 50 in 4th round was 29 sec.
And Joe took 17 strokes in both.

Can you calculate our tempos?
Here's how. We allow 3 beeps on initial push off and 4 beeps between final stroke on one lap and first stroke on next, when turning.
To roughly calculate tempo subtract 7 seconds from time and divide that by # of strokes.

I'll offer a complimentary video analysis to first person to post my and Joe's starting and finishing tempos below--and get them right.

[CoachSuzanne]

Originally Posted by keithstone

There's a slight error in the math. You should add seven to the stroke count instead of subtracting it from the time.

In Terry's first 50, he had 30 strokes plus 7 beats during push off and turn. That's 37 beats on the Tempo Trainer in 48 seconds, or 1.3 seconds per stroke. By the last 50 he increased his tempo to about 0.97 seconds per stroke. (It was probably 1.0 or 0.95 sec/stroke, with some measurement error.) If I had to guess the full set, I'd say he did 1.3, 1.2, 1.1, 1.0, 0.95

By the same math, Joe had a tempo of 1.6 in round one, going to 1.2 in round 5. (Probably 1.6, 1.5, 1.4, 1.3, 1.2). He had a slower tempo, but made up for it with his crazy SPL. How is that even possible?

Keith all I have to do is hand you some numbers and you'll have a spreadsheet whipped up in no time!

Based on my estimation the Tempo would be between 1.17 and 1.18 for his final 50.

See below

Tempo = (total strokes + tempo*(3+4))/time) . the 3 is for the first 25, 3 beeps pushoff. the 4 is for the turn...4 beeps on the turn

ANOTHER way to estimate Tempo "non swimming" time per length and subtract that from the total swim time * # of lengths.We can also use 4.5 seconds per length as non-swimming/stroking time. So tempo = ( (total time in seconds - 4.5 seconds/length)/total strokes ) ( 2 lengths so subtract 9 seconds).

This is what our coach in Pittsburgh has taught us. Thanks Suzanne!

[terry]

Originally Posted by CoachSuzanne

if he posts his answers and his explanation, could you find time to do another video analysis? :)

I give Keith an A for effort, and happy to analyze his video, but I think there's an error of logic here.
>>There's a slight error in the math. You should add seven to the stroke count instead of subtracting it from the time.

In Terry's first 50, he had 30 strokes plus 7 beats during push off and turn.>>

I don't think one can calculate 'beats' during turn and push off since I wasn't responding to the beep of a Tempo Trainer during this set.

[terry]

Earlier in this thread, I wrote that my immediate practice goal was to prepare for a good performance in 1650y (1500m equivalent) freestyle at the New England Masters Championships at Harvard.

I swam that race on Sat. 3/12. I hadn't swum a 1650 in 10 years so I had to guesstimate my seed time. On Jan 23 I swam 1000y in 13:56, a pace of just under 1:24 per 100.
Based on that I projected that if I swam really well for the 1650 (65% longer than the 1000) I might hold 1:25, so I seeded myself at 23:45, which I thought a reasonably accurate estimation of my capability.

However, as a member of Adirondack Masters, I also had my eye on the ADMS 60-64 record of 23:20. This would be my final race in the 60-64 age group. Could I break an ADMS record in my 'swan song?'

Considering how irregular and modest my training had been since my diagnosis, I believed I would have to swim absolutely lights-out to have a chance. Having a goal that would require me to swim a near-perfect race excited me.

I'll provide more detail on this race in my next blog, this coming Friday. In any case, when I hit the touch pad I looked up and saw 23:10 for my lane on the display board. I've been on something of a high ever since.

Not only from setting the record, but from the mental and physical excellence I was able to apply for every second during that swim. That gives me confirmation
I have the necessary resources to zero out cancer.

An account of that will form the core of this week's Zero Cancer Swimming post.
Have you read my last post, The Defining Event of My Life?

[terry]

Mon 14 Mar 2500scm at Nassau County Aquatic Center

With the 1650 behind me, I now turn my attention to preparing for Masters Nationals, where I plan to swim the 200, 500, and 1000 freestyle--and maybe the 100, which is definitely not my strong suit. Shorter faster events call for shorter, faster repeats and sets.

For today's practice I wanted to do something that would challenge me--cognitively and neurally--but not be too taxing physically, allowing me to recover from the effort of swimming a record-breaking 1650 less than 48 hours earlier.
I did a Distance Pyramid as follows
Swim 100-200-300-400-500-400-300-200-100.
I rested 20 to 30 seconds between swims.
I started with Tempo at 1.15 and counted strokes on the 1st 100.
My stroke count was 18 SPL
My goal was to maintain that stroke count as I increased distance from 100 to 500.
Keeping two metrics the same--SPL and Tempo--while raising the bar on a third--Distance--would be a good challenge in itself.
However I decided to make the challenge even stiffer by keeping one metric the same, while raising the bar on two.
While increasing distance, I would also increase tempo . . . and still challenge myself to hold 18 SPL.
I increased tempo by .01 after each swim
100 @ 1.15
200 @ 1.14
300 @ 1.13
400 @ 1.12
500 @ 1.11,
then decrease distance, but keep increasing tempo
400 @ 1.10
300 @ 1.09
200 @ 1.08
100 @ 1.07

I did succeed at holding 18 SPL the entire set.
I also checked times. Here are some samples
1st 100 1:40. Last 100 1:32
1st 400 6:29. 2nd 400 6:25
500: 8:04 -- for 1500m pace pf 24:12