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Off to the pool today not really knowing what to expect. After yesterday’s set went so well it might have been another really good session. On the other hand perhaps that was just a flash in the pan. The set was:

• 400m f/c warm-up
• 24 x 50m f/c, target 51s, turnaround 75s
• 200m swim down

As it turned out, I wasn’t able to reproduce yesterday’s form. I felt tired from the start and really couldn’t find the power in my arms. By rep six I’d already failed once, had another on rep ten and then managed a bit of a recovery before finally bombing out on rep twenty-one.

Not a great day, but such is the way of USRPT. I shall return to the pool next time with the target of doing better. I guess I did at least manage to hit 80km for my first three months this year. Considerably less than I was doing, say, two years ago, but much faster.

USRPT distance this year: 81,400m
Total distance this year: 83,950m

I hard the pool to myself at the start of today’s session. I was expecting a tough set, having dropped down from a target time of 55s a week ago to 52s today:

• 400m f/c warm-up
• 24 x 50m f/c, target 52s, turnaround 75s
• 200m swim down

I started out and just didn’t seem to be able to go slower than 50s! Even when I thought I’d slowed the pace a little I was almost always in the 49s. By halfway through I was getting a little concerned that I’d just burn out before the end because I’d gone too fast at the start. I can’t deny that the last three reps were quite tough, but when I got to the last one I pushed on the way back to be sure I made it and still ended up completing it in 47s. I think they must have put something in the water 🙂

I ended up with all but three reps being under 50s, those three being under 51s. I have to admit that I’m slightly bemused. A week ago I’d have struggled with this set and today it really didn’t seem any harder than it was doing reps three seconds slower then.

I’m starting to think that this kind of improvement can’t last and that I’ll have to start working towards improvements of 0.5s at some point soon, but next time at least I’m going to go for a target time of 51s and decide what happens from there when I see how it goes.

USRPT distance this year: 79,800m
Total distance this year: 82,350m

It was all a bit of a rush to get to the pool today as we had a visit from a structural engineer to assess the barn we’re planning to convert to a holiday cottage that didn’t leave much time to make it to the sports centre. Fortunately I was only 15 minutes late getting there which left me enough time for my set, which today was:

• 400m f/c warm-up
• 24 x 50m f/c, target 53s, turnaround 75s
• 200m swim down

The first half-dozen reps were all mid- to high-40s which was a bit worrying. I was sure I’d run out of steam later on at that sort of pace. Fortunately I managed to calm things down a bit and from then on most of the reps were between 50 and 51 seconds, with all but one of the remainder under 52 and just one somewhere around 52.2 when I messed up the turn.

I was quite surprised (and pleased) at how comfortably I’d made it through the set without any failures. I really can’t expect them all to go that well. I can’t deny that I felt very tired afterwards.

So, a new target time of 52 seconds for the next session.

USRPT distance this year: 78,000m
Total distance this year: 80,550m

A new target today:

• 400m f/c warm-up
• 24 x 50m f/c, target 54s, turnaround 75s
• 200m swim down

One second faster than the set I completed on Thursday last week. I wasn’t feeling great when I got to the pool and wasn’t really mentally in the right place, but actually the set went pretty well. I had no failures and most of my reps were 51 seconds or 52 seconds, with a couple of excursions into 53 seconds when I messed up the turn. Rep 23 felt very tough, but I was so determined to complete the set that I gave it everything on the way back on rep 24, finishing in less than 49 seconds. I was quite pleased with that.

Target time 53 seconds next, then. That might be tough. I will need to make all of my turns I think. No slipping on the wall or turning a bit too early.

USRPT distance this year: 76,200m
Total distance this year: 78,750m

So, back to the stopwatch today, working on the following set:

• 400m f/c warm-up
• 24 x 50m f/c, target 55s, turnaround 75s
• 200m swim down

I felt quite tired during the warm-up so I wasn’t sure how it would go, but my first rep was 48s, after which I settled into a fairly steady rhythm of 51s, dropping into the 52s later in the set. I did have a couple of 53s when I had poor turns and didn’t get a good push off the wall, but they were the worst two. Overall I was very pleased with it. I’m not sure I can manage another set tomorrow however. I might do a 100m pace set instead — perhaps 24 x 25m f/c, target 25s, turnaround 40s or something like that. I’ve got no idea where to start, so that doesn’t seem too bad a point to work from.

USRPT distance this year: 74,400m
Total distance this year: 76,250m

I don’t usually swim on Wednesdays, but having missed Monday I decided I’d go the pool, especially as I must have slept awkwardly and had woken up with a pounding headache thanks to the muscles in my back and neck being very stiff.

I didn’t really know what to expect, but as it happens the swimming came very comfortably and though I was tiring at the end I managed to complete my entire set without a failure.

Perhaps it’s now time to explain in more detail what I’ve actually been doing for the last three months…

Last year I spent most of my time swimming USRPT sets and had managed to get to the point of swimming a complete set of 50m reps with a target time of 50s and a turnaround time of 75s. But that was doing an open turn between lengths, and it was becoming fairly obvious to me that I was going to struggle to get much faster unless I could tumble turn instead. Trying to swim sets with tumble turns was just killing me however. I could manage perhaps half a dozen reps and then I was completely exhausted. I might manage the odd one or two more, but putting more together in a run just wasn’t happening.

I had a fair while off in late November and early December last year thanks to quite a bad cold, so when I started again on 10th December I decided I’d give myself a short while just to get back into the swing of things and then I’d adopt a USRPT-style approach to getting my tumble turns in, starting from quite a long way out, time-wise.

So, my first set was twenty-four 50s, tumble turn every time, target time 100 secs, turnaround on 120 secs. Even that wasn’t easy initially and I had some fails that first time. I persisted however, and every time I could do the full set of twenty-four reps I dropped the target time and turnaround time by five seconds, but I had to keep the tumble turns going. Slowly the time has dropped, though it has been quite tough recently. Today I completed twenty-four 50s with a target time of 55s and a turnaround time of 75s for the first time. Not quite as fast as I was four months ago with open turns, but hardly far off either.

To progress now I think I need to change the game plan. I’m going to return to “proper” USRPT, use my stopwatch and start trying to drop the target time one second each time I can complete the set, reducing the turnaround time to twenty seconds once it reaches twenty-five. I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out.

USRPT distance this year: 72,600m
Total distance this year: 74,450m