In the past week I've done a couple of 80 minute swim sessions, the first was literally swimming for 80 minutes straight and covering 4400 yards at about a 1:50/100yds pace. Today, I decided to mix it up and do intervals of 25 yards, 50 yards and 100 yards (did throw in one 200 yard interval as well). My actual time swimming was 1:06, and my average pace when swimming was 1:40/100yds. The best part is that I felt really good throughout and when I got out of the pool. I realized that I hadn't done anything like this in a very long time. So, I went back and looked at my training logs and discovered that I haven't done workouts like this since 2012! Of note, my Ironman swim times during my first few years of doing ironman was right around 1:10-1:12. In the past few years, focusing primarily on my VASA swim trainer, and actually doing little to no swim training in the past couple of years, my swim pace dropped into the 1:20 range and hit an all-time low of 1:30 last year at Santa Rosa (getting over a cold as well).
I'm dedicated to getting my swim back and feel like the last few weeks has put me in a very interesting spot. My eighty minute continuous swim last week was a great confidence builder and suggested that I might already be closer to my earlier ironman swim times than my latest ones. With that said, the only way one can get in the habit of swimming fast is to swim fast! So, today's workout was more traditional, and will probably become my go-to workout. It's good that my 100 yard pace is settling in right around 1:40, which tracks pretty closely with similar workouts that I did between 2010 and 2012. The cool thing is that I'm nearly 10 years older and I haven't been keeping any sort of swim volume up and I'm already close to where I was then. My goal of swimming faster at Kona seems very reasonable at this time.
My goal for my swim at Boulder in 3 weeks is to come close to my best IM Boulder swim, which was my first race there, and I swam ~1:13. I'd be thrilled to be close to that in three weeks, and am pretty confident that I can be, especially if I keep these workouts up. In fact, the number of workouts that I did back then that are close to what I've done in the past week was marginal. A few more of these and I'll have done more in a month than I've ever done during my entire career as a triathlete! While I normally take the attitude that the time I spend swimming could be better spent on the other disciplines, now that my focus is 100% Ironman training, that's not an excuse. I need to get adequate training time in for all three disciplines! Plus, coming out of the water feeling fresh, as I've done a few times during my ironman journey, is the ultimate goal! The swim should not detract from the rest of the day, either in amount of time or fatigue.
I'll probably be able to get in another swim tomorrow, and then I'll keep this up until race week! After IM Boulder, I'll get back with my new swim coach and see how much further I can improve my swim time for Kona. I've got my eye on the 1:10 mark, because that gives me about 20 minutes to fend off the fastest female age group swimmers at Kona. Not sure how much faster than that I can go without burning matches, but we'll see. I continue to find that my greatest strength in swimming has always been good form, rather than strength. On the other hand, I can feel the value of getting stronger with today's workout. My journey continues!
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