Fast & slow

The last 10 to 14 days have been mixed. I've struggled to be enthused to swim after work as every day has felt too long and too stressful. So I arrived at last Sunday under-exercised and felt energetic on my usual run from Whirlow to Oxstones.

I reached Oxstones in a 2nd fastest time and after a very brief pause pushed on along Houndkirk Road. At my turn I was please to have reached it in under 45 minutes - often it's closer to 48minutes. Turning around I noted that the wind still wasn't in my face. Often if I do a good pace along the byway I discover that I've been wind-assisted and then have resistance in the other direction. I kept up the effort back to the car park and achieved a PB of under 1 hour 20 minutes.

Everything wasn't good though as in the afternoon a develop marked pain in my left heel very close to the symptoms described online for achilles tendonosis. To be fair, the issue has been bubbling under for a few weeks. I blame it on running to a meeting I was late for in my Vivobarefoot boots. Luckily on Monday I had a physio appointment. Indeed my putative diagnosis was correct and I was advised off running for a few days at least. It's likely that a fast run on a background of too little training was just too much. I feel it is improving now but not sure I should run tomorrow.

Meanwhile my swimming has got slower and slower. Unlike running, where I can achieve a good outcome after a 'rest', swimming ability seems to ebb away day by day. Today's 'spike set' was incredibly slow and my pace dropped off markedly across a mere 1133m. I was making a distinct effort to take the rest sets genuinely slowly and gently but even when trying to be faster I didn't achieve much pace. At least I did make the effort so perhaps I've been able to halt the swimming decline?

Still a struggle

Another 3 weeks with too little training to be effective and too much stress to be healthy. I've not been able to face doing a swim, nor do any significant runs as I've had tough days and things on at the weekends. I've done a couple of swims but with a week and a half between them, each has felt like starting afresh.

Once again I'm struggling to manage 200m in under 5 minutes and I can't get a decent (for me) pace on sprint lengths either. Even though I was only in the water for 30 minutes, and aiming to swim most of the lengths gently, my pace faded markedly.

Three week break - due to illness

In the middle of February I thought I was getting back into swimming and completed a 1500m swim which was slow, uncomfortable and generally horrid. After a few miles hiking I knew I was ill. I managed a few easy days in work and then was off for the rest of the week. That's very unusual for me!

Now in March I'm very nearly recovered although the cold air still makes me cough. On Friday I managed 600m in the pool including 4 sprint lengths, one of which I managed to bat 2:09min/100m. Today I took a step forwards and did 1000m, mostly in sets of 200m.

The first 3 sets felt different although all were at a very similar pace around 2:23min/100m. The first warm-up set had good form and fewest SPL. The second I worked harder and merely succeeded in taking more SPL! For the third I determined to 'take it easy' and indeed it was slightly slower (discounting being behind someone for a half a length) but not notably considering how much less effort I put in.

For the fourth set I did some sprint 67m sets and as above the effort only partially translated into progress. Then it was time to call it a day and the fifth set was very steady, thinking about elbows and form and being generally smooth and was 'slow' at 2:30min/100m. SPL was higher nonetheless showing a distinct loss of technique whatever my intentions were. On the plus side, that set felt as though it could have been a lot longer.

So I'm getting back into the spirit of swimming, just need to return to the habit of not stopping between sets whilst keeping this pace.

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.

Data loss

I'm not sure how well today's swim went. I thought the first 200m warm-up went well at 62SPM but no data. It seems that the failing watch battery led to a corrupt file. I then did some sets at 63SPM with bilateral breathing but found that I was running out of breath by 6 lengths. I tried faster and slower cadence and much the same. It did feel successful to do a sort of 2-3-1 system to keep some symmetry and reduce the time between breaths but perhaps more complex than needed.

Just before stopping I tired a 'powerful' set with RHS only breathing but trying to push with my arms as much as possible. Don't know how the pace was!

Oh well, at least I was in the water for half an hour or so.

Back home I changed the battery but couldn't retrieve the file...

Keep on breathing

I wanted to build on Friday's bilateral breathing today and did sets at a range of stroke rates. As seems to be normal the first set of bilateral breathing was a struggle and I felt the pace was unsustainable even at 62SPM. I did a sequence of 200m sets at 64, 66 and 64 SPM and found the first 64SPM to be fastest. 66SPM felt to be above a critical speed.

To mix things up I then did 67m pairs of lengths at 68, 70 and 72SPM, acknowledging that it would be tending anaerobic and not suitable for any significant distance. Pleasingly the greater effort did give greater pace although maybe the workload became disproportionate; 70SPM being best for  a 'fast' lengths? Importantly over this session the SPL didn't rise excessively, I always show a gradual increase due to fatigue.

Your can't have it both ways

Yesterday, after work I swam for half an hour and was very pleased with the process if not the pacing.   I worked with the TempoTrainer and did the warm up at 60SPM which ended up being slightly slower than usual at around 5 minutes. Then I upped the cadence to 62SPM for 400m of RHS only strokes which felt fairly hard going and came in at 9:42min which is OK.

With some degree of depletion I set off for sets of bilateral breathing gradually increasing the SPM to finally 66SPM, the rationale being that my cadence is well below that usually recommended. I get it helped keep up the rhythm of the sets and doesn't need a leading arm to be held for ages.

It was hard to review the times and link back to stroke rate (the Garmin recorded stroke rate is averaged with an initial glide) but it does seem that somewhere around 64SPM may be optimum. I was surprised how comfortable I felt doing this and easily managed 100m sets and included a 200m set when I felt that my pace had been interrupted. None of the sets were fast, around 2:25min/100m at best, but the important thing is that it felt manageable with bilateral breathing. It would be great if I could do that for 400m or more, but in reality I suspect I'd be over 10 minutes.

Anyway, come this morning's run I think the swimming effort was apparent! I struggled with every ascent, couldn't find a comfortable temperature and was glad to get back home. It was a good job that I'd set off with an intention to be 'slow' as if I'd been hoping for a record I'd have been disappointed. But this all makes sense, I can't expect to make gains on consecutive days.