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Off to the pool this afternoon for another attempt at my latest set:

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

I was first into the pool because there was a school session beforehand, but more swimmers than usual turned up whilst I was warming up and it started to get a little busy. I ended up stuck between two swimmers who were both making quite large bow waves and the water became a bit choppy, which isn’t something I enjoy.

Then about halfway through my set someone joined in next to me, splitting the two lanes (there were no lane ropes in today) swimming breaststroke. I don’t really mind people swimming that close as I don’t take up a lot of room myself, but she just didn’t appear to be able to swim parallel to the side of the pool. She might start from the shallow end perhaps a metre and a half from me, but by the time she’d reached the deep end she was swimming down the lane line I was using. This isn’t a great situation to be in when swimming front crawl 🙁

Fortunately the swimmer the other side of me left fairly soon after and she moved into their position, but not before we’d had a few near misses, one before I’d even breathed after coming off the wall in the turn. Hey ho 🙁

Anyhow, the set… It went much better today than on Friday. Despite the near misses I managed to complete nineteen reps before failing on twenty and then finished off the last few reps in the set without failing again. It would be nice if that means I can complete the set next time, but I’m probably at the point of going as fast as I’ve ever managed now, so perhaps I can’t expect progress to be too fast.

Talking of progressing, I think from here on in I’m going to drop the target time by half a second each time I complete a set unless I’m clearly managing it easily. At the moment it feels like a more realistic target, rather than knocking off an entire second and having a large number of failures.

USRPT distance this year: 83,150m
Total distance this year: 85,700m

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