September 2016 Week 6 Session 3

Now I'm supposed to do 2 x 100m each in 1:54min or less; and repeat it five times. That's not going to happen and indeed it didn't happen. The first pair of 100m were done in 1:56min/100m which I was very happy with. Unfortunately from then on my pace slackened until the best I could manage was 2:11min/100m. (As an excuse, the water was incredibly rough by the end of my session.)

I'd only just worked up to 9 of 10 100m sets at a sub 2:00min/100m pace so doubling up was destined to fail. Anyway I'll work at it and probably find after a few weeks that I'm struggling but could achieve an earlier goal readily.

September 2016 Week 6 Session 2

Session 2 is hateful.

Maybe by the end of the 12 week block I'll feel that I've mastered it but currently I hate the combination of pace and the duration. Having to make an effort when tired is tough.

The chart shows distinctly how my strokes per length increases as I fatigue but also as I increase stroke rate. That tends to mean less efficiency and more fatigue...

Today I didn't manage the intended negative splits as well as last week but this actually hides an improvement. In the first 1600m my final pace was with a second of last week but my starting pace 8 seconds better.  For the second 1600m the difference was much more marked. For the first 400m my pace was 42 seconds faster and for the last set 26 seconds better.

I knew that I'd started the seconds super set faster than last week and assumed that I'd not pushed myself as much in the first superset as I didn't feel as worn. That might well be true, but if so I've basically worked less hard to achieve the same outcome! (Looking back over a few weeks it's clear my pace has improved by a few seconds for each set.)

Now I need to capitalise on this slight increase in fitness by trying to establish distinct negative splits again without setting off artificially slowly. That means more effort at the end.

September 2016 Week 6 Session 1

Now I'm up to 20 pairs of slow/fast lengths. I exceeded 2:00min/100m for every one of the fast lengths with a best pace of 1:46min/100m. Most lengths had a stroke count of 20 per length showing that with these short intervals I generated more power per stroke than in yesterday's 100m intervals.

September 2016 Week 4 (again) Session 3

It's really Week 5 but as I've failed to achieve the goal of Session 3 in the Week 1 to Week 4 block I elected to try Week 4 again. There has been progress as I achieved 2:00min/100m pace on 9 out of 10 100m sets and with good pace consistency. In previous weeks it all collapsed after 5 sets but today it seemed fine until the 7th or 8th.

The initial sets were great, being around d 1:55min/100m and with only 20 strokes per length. Clearly I was applying power well.

My maximum stroke rate was 34spm in the final third of the session as I struggled, and managed, to maintain pace.

The pull buoy-less warmup lengths are easy to see as a distinct, slow cluster. Although the stroke rate is faster than in my easy lengths it's below that of my hard lengths. I wonder what my pace could be with anchor-legs at my maximal stroke rate? Perhaps I couldn't maintain it for more than a length?

The second question is whether I can achieve a sub-8 minute 400? Interval training is, of course, based on the premise that you can work harder for a number of brief periods than can be managed as a block. But what about 4 sets of 100m sequentially?

September 2016 Week 5 Session 2

The second session in this programme is awful. It's tough, long and I really do not enjoy it. Doing a fast set and then having to start the repeat the superset again is draining. I managed negative splits for 1600m but after that my arms were like lead and the second superset was slow. I did manage negative splits, which I think is a first, but the pace was glacial even for the fastest set.

Looking at previous sessions I did manage to control and raise the pace better today than in the past so there is slight progress. The pool was incredibly rough today, although I know I've written that before, so that increases the impact of fatigue.

September 2016 Week 5 Session 1

I thought that today's session had gone well in that I managed to do 15 of 16 fast lengths at a pace better than 2:00min/100m. My best lengths were at 1:47min/100m which isn't quite as good as last week but the difference is around 1 second per length which is probably within my error in stopping and starting the timer. I should have managed the 16th length at target pace but I set off thinking I'd try 2 or 3 lengths and I suspect that I reduced my commitment to the first one of the three and thereby failed on all counts!

I did achieve a stroke rate of 35spm within the session and there is a slight tendency for strokes per length to be reducing. Together I feel these number imply that I'm starting to get more power and by keeping distance covered in each stroke the length pace is improving.

As a note to self though, for Week 5 of the programme I should have done sets of 5 pairs of lengths. It makes sense to add more intervals to maintain the training intensity.

Forerunner battery dead?

Before yesterday's run I'd changed my Forerunner 100 overnight but half way through it showed 'Low Battery'. I put it down to the cold, and perhaps poor connection with the charging clip. Last night I made sure the clip was well positioned and by this morning charging was complete. I disconnected the charger and within an hour I heard the beep of 'Low Battery' again even though the watch was on standby. The battery indicator is low, of course. I've tried rebooting the watch and it still shows an empty batter but no inclination to charge. Maybe it's the end of the line for it? Although batteries are available online I wonder how easy it will be to get a good outcome. These things aren't built to be repaired.