Swim of the Week: 1-2-3-4-5

Assistant Coach Kellan, who turns one month old tomorrow, has granted me a small window of time to write up this week's Swim of the Week. He's a pretty high maintenance assistant, though, so the swim of the week has turned more into the Swim of Whenever Kellan Takes A Nap.

This week I bring you a ladder set that involves a lot of hard swimming. There's really nowhere to hide in this set. The idea behind this swim is that you'll begin with your shortest, but fastest swimming. From there, the pace will drop off as the distances increase, but not drastically. Rather, you should be holding your effort steady and allowing your pace to slow by roughly 1-2 seconds per 100 on each step of the ladder. Swimming this set will help triathletes navigate race day more effectively. For most, the pace slows as the race progresses. But that does not have to mean that you completely collapse and give away minutes to the clock before ever reaching your bike. Rather than totally imploding, as many do, after the initial surge at the start of the race, you'll learn to manage your effort. You'll swim hard, but reasonably, in the initial stages and from there you will be able to settle into a sustainable, but solid, pace

While no step is more important to each other as they all function together, the 500 is worth paying attention to. As you'll see, you get a bit of extra rest after the 400, but the 500 is done at a harder effort than the 400. Pay attention to that. It's difficult, but worthwhile.

This swim forces you to work hard. Know going in that it will be taxing. It takes a good deal of focus and commitment to really do this swim well. However, if done correctly, it's rewarding both in terms of the actual gains and in the confidence boost you'll receive.

Warm Up

- 500 choice (free, kick, back, etc.)
- 400 cruise
- 2x150 as 50 hard, 100 steady, 20" rest
- 4x50 hard on 15" rest
- 100 easy choice

Drill Set

- 3x150 as 100 drill, 50 cruise
- 150 cruise

Ladder Set

- 100 strong on cruise +10"
- 200 strong on cruise + 5"
- 300 strong  on cruise + 5"
- 400 steady/strong on cruise + 20"
- 500 strong

Cool Down

- 8x50 choice

As noted other times in my workouts, the sendoff interval is your cruise pace per 100 plus a certain number of seconds on top of that. It is not a certain number of seconds added to your cruise pace. A cruise pace of 1:30 gets you to a sendoff of 3:05 on the 200 if calculated correctly (1:30x2 + 5"). If done incorrectly you come up with 3:10 (1:30 + 5" = 1:35 x 2). The difference may seem small, but over the course of the session it adds up and undermines some of the work you are doing.

Looking to make this even more challenging? Make it a pyramid rather than a ladder. Work your way back down to the 100, either swimming on the same interval or a faster one.

Enjoy this swim and let me know how it goes!