Steady working

Over the weekend I'd been working under the floor so started the week feeling worked-out. I committed to a 1000m set at a 'steady' pace using 60SPM set on TempoTrainer to keep my mind on the process. It gradually became hard work and I felt my stroke failing. The pace data shows an overall fading.

The SPL increased gradually too from 21 to 24. Nonetheless I kept focus as much as possible and completed in 24:22min a pace of 2:26min/100m. This is equal to my PB and barely a percent improvement on where I was last year:

04/02/19 2:26min/100m
02/07/18 2:26min/100m

02/02/18 2:28min/100m

18/01/18 2:32 min/100m
05/03/17 2:42 min/100m
04/01/16 3:02 min/100m
26/02/15 3:40 min/100m

That's a success seeing that I had a few months break after this peak in July 2018 and then had to work my way back. Last year I did say that "I wasn't really trying", this time I was making an effort.

After this main set I experimented with bilateral breathing for jus 2 length sets. Taking a steady 59SPM I was slow and struggled to breath, almost with a dead spot. A higher cadence of 66SPM felt more balanced although the effort felt considerable. 63 to 64 seems best and with less leading-arm droop.

Looking at stroke rate

Much earlier in the year I was trying to increase my stroke rate to gain some speed. My arm turnover is slow and may well be associated with a drawn-out glide phase. So today I tried sets at 64, 65 and 66SPM hoping to get some good times, I remembered 66SPM being a good rate for me. I got a good workout but unfortunately the pace didn't improve. Even my first set at 65SPM was at a below normal pace. This suggest quite strongly that the  stroke rate was too high for me to be effective.

Some final sets with bilateral breathing and a standard pullbuoy with a greater tempo were disappointing too.

Looking back to April 2018 it seems that 62SPM is closer to my ideal turnover than 66SPM, I'd remembered incorrectly, even from earlier in the month...

It's also possible that I'm tired, yesterday's run was the slowest I've ever done for that regular route.

Stroke rate

For a change I swam 3 sets with the ToyBuoy at 62, 64 and 66SPM. Previously 64SPM seemed about right, and it did today again as at 66SPM my pace dropped and the SPL increased. I felt to manage the arm turnover OK so the potential is there. Even 64SPM is faster cadence than usual and did give a slight boost to pace and uniformity so is a good point to work at currently.

First 62spm session

With a new CR1620 the TempoTrainer was set to 62 in Mode 3 and put to work. I found I could manage 4 lengths for a set, 133m, and maintain the stroke rate and reasonable form so 6 sets of that was great after a warm-up.

My pace was 2:14min/100m consistently across a set and only slight variation within each. I felt as though I could have managed longer sets but focussing on high elbow and tipping my fingers gave m plenty to think about and I didn't want to loose focus.

My left shoulder and elbow still have a slight niggle and it'll be interesting to see whether the physio thinks it's Ok to continue with these short sessions.

The display is fading on the timer after 24hours stand-by and 1 swim so either the eBay batteries are junk or there is some sort of short in the unit causing the battery to fail prematurely.

September 2016 Week 14 Session 2

As I had time on Sunday morning I chose to do the long Session 2 rather than short Session 1. In the last few weeks I've taken to using the TempoTrainer Pro to stage the sets and today aimed for 46, 45, 44 and 43 seconds per length. Previously I've struggled to keep to 43s and recorded times around 43.7 seconds. Today was 44.1 seconds so a little slow. My excuse is that my arms were tired from DIY over the weekend.

I went into the second superset fairly fatigued with a plan to try 48, 47, 46 and 45 seconds. Pretty much I was stuck at 48 seconds! For the final set I decided to try to pick it off in 100m sets. I managed one at 45 seconds, largely helped by a good first length at 42 seconds, but then faded to 47 seconds despite a stroke rate of 33 SPL. Worn out sums it up.

This Session is hard work and seemingly I'm not improving.