I’ve learned to be more intuitive about my workouts. That’s the nice thing about not being on a team. If there’s something I don’t want to do, I might choose not to do it. Like today. My ambitious objective was to crank out 4 x 400 yd on 8:00. That’s a lot for me right now. Additionally, today was to be my first session of 2200 yd, in recent years that is. But soon after waking up I realized the Eye of the Tiger was not with me. So, I opted for the following routine instead. And it was kinda enjoyable. It wasn’t brutally excruciating, anyways. There is a balance, after all, between training my cardio-vascular and muscular systems, and performing the competitive strokes with proper technique. If I’m struggling just to complete a set, and there’s certainly times when that’s valuable, I may not be able to maintain good form, which is important, I feel, this early in my return to the pool. Adjusting workout intensity intuitively allows me to balance these two objectives more effectively. There are two concepts I’m not willing to compromise, though: total daily distance, and daily focus. No matter how I feel, I will complete the prescribed distance of each day’s routine. Today’s requirement was for 2200 yd, for example. My own concept of focus varies like this: The first training day of the week is dedicated to longer freestyle sets, involving intervals as long as 400 yd. For the next two or three days I step down interval distances until I’m sprinting for 100 or 50 yd. The final weekly swimming session is focused on IM sets, bettering each of the remaining three competitive strokes.
da numbers:
- 2 x 100yd free/zipperswitch
- step sets, starting at 0:00
- 400yd
- time: ~5:55
- 300yd @ 8:00
- time: ~4:20
- 200yd @ 14:00
- time: ~2:50
- 100yd @ 19:00
- time: ~1:15
- should have left @ 18:00
- 2 x 200yd pull w/ paddles @ 5:00
- coming in between 3:45 – 3:55
- 300yd dolphin kick, alternating lengths on back/front
- 300yd apnea drill w/ short fins
total distance: 2200yd
