[b]para 3)”Increased my breathing..[/b].” will give me motivation to try your program, though must admit I’ve been a smooth freestyle lap swimmer–in old 20yd YMCA pool–consistently doing 100 yds @ 5.0 ( 5 miutes)…sprinting kicks it down..but definitely need breath-exercise breaks then.
QUESTION: Since I’ve never practiced for competition, I’m still basically lost understanding the alpha& numerical outlines ALWAYs shown for “suggested training”,eg yours above, et al in SWIMMER & TI books).

I’ve been using my USMS GTD blog since March…and that REALLY helps with the “ATTENTION” factor.
At YMCA-CC ,doing 2xweek 400 min, 800 max lap sessions, I count & verify w/wall clock: Swimming 1st 20, think “0+”;swiming 2nd 20, think “0+1″, swiming 3rd 20,think “0+3…so on to “0+5 and 100 YD!!” ,then 6th 20,thinking “100+”, swiming 7th 20,thinking “100 + 1″…etc to goal of 400, 600 or 800 ( 1/2mile).
It certainly keeps me focused, ENJOYING the streamline glide.
(Like my Centering Prayer concept ,staying in the “present moment” … “to do one thing at a time.”

With my irregular heart beat, and shortness of breath ,when taking breathing ex breaks–at 100 or +–, I recall/use
one of the yoga pattern counts of in/hold/ex/hold ,eg 6/6/6/1.
I think of TI when my toes are comfortably straight kicking, and my roll gives me a glide that I can feel across my fingers!
Muchas Gracias from SOuth Texas,
Herb Janecek