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Six days without a swim 🙁 A combination of work and a change in the opening times of the pool for half-term got in the way most of last week.

I repeated my previous set today, but with another four lengths in the warm-up:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 58s, rest interval 22s
100m front crawl swim down

I struggled to control my pace in the first few lengths, hitting 45s for the first two and then 46s for the next three before dropping back to mostly 48s. Those first few fast ones took their toll though and by the last five I was hitting 50s. Nonetheless I completed the set without a fail.

Next time I’ll try to control the pace a bit better.

Hopefully next time will be tomorrow, but an interesting side-effect of swimming at a higher pace than I did last year for example (about half as fast again for the 50s, I reckon) is that although I’m not covering anything like the same distance — generally less than 1,800m per session as opposed to nearer 2.5km — I feel far more tired. As a result I’ve been considering dropping back to sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with rest days in between. For the time being I’ll try to push on as things are though.

USRPT distance this year: 11,150m
Total distance this year: 32,300m

As I’ve managed my previous USRPT set three times without a fail and need to make it harder, I decided I’d drop the target time to 58s and have a rest interval of 22s, so the set now becomes:

300m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 58s, rest interval 22s
100m front crawl swim down

In a manner of speaking its the same set as before, but I decided a smoother progression down to the point where I start to fail would be more sensible and I’ll set other technique-based targets for myself on the way down.

Today the first few reps I managed in 47s, then dropping into the 48s with a few 49s and a 50 at the end of the set, completing the entire set without a fail.

USRPT distance this year: 9,900m
Total distance this year: 30,550m

Didn’t get to swim yesterday, so today I repeated Wednesday’s USRPT set with a truncated warm-up and swim down because of the time available:

300m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 60s, rest interval 20s
100m front crawl swim down

Once again I completed the set without a failure, though it was starting to feel pretty tough towards the end. My first 50 was 47s followed by almost all 48s with one 49 at about halfway, then number 24 got out to 50s before a 49s last run.

Not sure what I shall do next at the moment. I deliberately set the target fairly easy to start with to allow myself to get back into training, but I’m wondering if pulling the target time down to 55s might be too big a step all at once when I can pretty much do all the 50s in under 50 seconds. On the other hand, if I lower the target time and extend the rest interval to give turnaround times that work easily for the pace clock then I’m really swimming the same set as I’ve already done.

USRPT distance this year: 8,650m
Total distance this year: 28,900m

A repeat of yesterday’s set:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 60s, rest interval 20s
200m front crawl swim down

And another successful completion! Managed a few 47s, mostly 48s and I think one 49 and a 50 on the last one, when I was really starting to feel quite tired.

Another attempt tomorrow and if that is also successful then I’ll be looking to reduce the target time. I suspect that will make it significantly harder.

USRPT distance this year: 7,400m
Total distance this year: 27,250m

Had a bit of a domestic emergency yesterday that meant I didn’t have time to swim (although I came close to needing to swim in my own kitchen!), so today was my first attempt at my next USRPT set:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 60s, rest interval 20s
200m front crawl swim down

I’m pleased to say that I managed the entire set at the first attempt, although it was pretty hard work towards the end. I think most of the 50s I actually managed as high 47s or low 48s, with a couple drifting out to 49s.

Same thing again next time (hopefully tomorrow).

USRPT distance this year: 6,150m
Total distance this year: 25,400m

Did my best to repeat the same USRPT session of previous days, but I was late getting to the pool for the hour it’s open to the public between swim schools, so I cut my warm-up short and even then ran out of time for a proper swim down:

300m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 60s, rest interval 25s
50m front crawl swim down

Happily I managed to get through the main set without a failure, generally hitting mid- to low- 48 second 50s with one 47, one 49 and one 50. As that’s three complete sets without failure in a row, next time I’m going to drop the recovery time to twenty seconds (so target 60s, rest 20s) and see how that goes.

USRPT distance this year: 4,900m
Total distance this year: 23,550m

Another repeat of the USRPT set I did yesterday and the day before that:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 60s, rest interval 25s
200m front crawl swim down

Managed to complete the set without a failure, though I’m struggling to keep track of all the 50s, so I might look at using a notebook with waterproof paper to check off lengths and list send-off intervals on the pace clock. Today was actually even better than yesterday as I managed all the 50s in under fifty seconds — a fair mix of 48s and 49s I’d say, though I didn’t count. I might track those in a notebook too.

USRPT distance this year: 3,650m
Total distance this year: 21,950m

A repeat of yesterday’s USRPT set today, though only 400m for the warm-up as I was getting a little tight on time otherwise:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 60s, rest interval 25s
200m front crawl swim down

Today I managed the entire set without failing. Actually I was hitting around 50s for the 50m swims which makes the rest interval a little long, but I think I need to work my way back down to the shorter rest interval at the moment. Certainly my heart rate was still high and my breathing still deep when I started on the next 50.

I think I’m going to set a rule that I need to complete a set without failing three consecutive times before I reduce the target time or the rest interval. Assuming I do this over the next couple of days then I’ll probably reduce the rest interval to 20s and then the next step will be to reduce the target time to 55s and we’ll see how it goes from there.

Last swim of the month, this. Not an impressive total for the month, not even compared to last January when I managed 32.2km. I’m not really expecting a huge increase (if any) over last year, but it would at least be nice to be somewhere close. Not that USRPT sets are about distance, but I’d still like to think I can cover around the same kind of distance as I was doing last year with the new 2018 regime. I reckon once I get the hang of things in an hour and a half there should really be time for a warm-up, a 25 x 50m set, recovery set, 30 x 25m set in a different stroke and swim down with some to spare, which is a decent distance each day. If I stick to 50s for front crawl and do a 25m set in backstroke or breaststroke (or stick to two 25m sets if I want to do shorter front crawl work) that should work until I feel up to doing a 50m set in backstroke or breaststroke.

USRPT distance this year: 2,400m
Total distance this year: 19,500m