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Back to the pool for a third attempt at my current session:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 52s, rest interval 23s
200m front crawl swim down

Bit of an unexpected day, this. My first 50 was 47s. The first half dozen were all 47s or 48s and even after the first fifteen reps I’d not dropped out of the 49s. By the time I’d done a few more I was becoming slightly concerned that I was going to blow up in the last few and drop below the target time, but even when I tried to slow down I was still banging in sub-50s reps. The last two were just a case of hanging in there, but even so I still came in sub-50 on both.

So, another 25 reps completed and the target time drops again, but the most amazing thing was being sub-50s for every single rep. I genuinely didn’t believe I could do that at the moment. Soon I shall have to though 🙂 It does mean that whilst I’ll now be looking at a target time of 51s, I have in fact gone from reps of 60s on 1:25 at the start of February (which I couldn’t actually complete at first) to sub 50s on 1:15 in five months, though actually I’ve probably missed over six weeks of that period for one reason or another (weather/illness/injury/work mostly). I’m quite pleased with that.

USRPT distance this year: 48,650m
Total distance this year: 108,500m

Back to my latest USRPT set today:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 52s, rest interval 23s
200m front crawl swim down

Got off to a bit of a sluggish start and had one rep over 51s (but only just) in the first half dozen. Things actually got a bit better after that and whilst I did have another excursion into the low 51s, many of my reps were actually coming in at less than 50s and again I completed the entire set. I think that’s a definite improvement on the last time.

USRPT distance this year: 47,400m
Total distance this year: 105,150m

First attempt at a new target time today:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 52s, rest interval 23s
200m front crawl swim down

I expected this to be tough and I certainly feel tired now. All but one of the first ten reps were under 50s, but though I had a few over 50s after that there weren’t too many. Only three were over 51s, and I just made the entire set by the skin of my teeth, two of those being 51.9<something>.

Quite pleased with myself for having done so well.

I did notice that my right hand is doing something strange during the pull phase today. I suspect my wrist is rotating, driving my arm slightly in and then out again just after it passes the line of my shoulders. I might have to see if one of the other coaches can watch and tell me exactly what is going on there.

USRPT distance this year: 46,150m
Total distance this year: 102,100m

Another technique session spent on tumble turns, provoking some thought about how I execute them. Not having been doing them since I was six or whenever swimmers get taught them these days, I have tended to breathe quite late after the flags and take very few strokes between then and initiating the turn. Today I discovered that I could take my last breathe outside the flags, swim to the wall, hit the turn and make ten metres out before my first breath, though I’ll admit that was only once and it was hard work. However, it does look as though taking one last breath soon after the flags gives much more time to achieve a stable body position to go into the turn and perhaps also allows the turn to be initiated just a little further out from the wall, meaning I don’t have to swim quite as far (always a good thing 🙂 and that my legs aren’t excessively compressed when I come to push off meaning that I leave the wall sooner.

Further experimentation is certainly required.

On a side note, I passed 100km for the year today. That’s way lower than this time last year when I’d done well over 200km, but actually because I’ve been doing the USRPT sets my work rate has been higher and I’ve become fitter and faster. I’ve also only been swimming four days a week instead of five and for less time per day. At the moment I just can’t take five days. I get too physically tired. I’ve also missed far more days due to work commitments. In terms of actual time spent in the water I think I’ve swum just as far if not further so far this year, despite allocating some sessions just for practising technique.

USRPT distance this year: 44,900m
Total distance this year: 100,250m

Unfortunately work intervened and I didn’t get to swim on Friday. I spent Sunday coaching at a swimming meet and really wasn’t feeling too bright today, but went to the pool determined to have a third crack at the current set:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 53s, rest interval 22s
200m front crawl swim down

It really was hard today. Could have been the effects of the previous day, or perhaps that I just didn’t eat early enough and didn’t have as much energy as I really needed, but I was fighting pretty much the entire way through the set. I did eventually make it, with most reps taking 50s, a few excursions into the 51s and one over 52s. I was utterly exhausted by the end though.

So now I go down to 52s with a 23s rest interval.

USRPT distance this year: 44,900m
Total distance this year: 98,850m