Training to Race

As I was preparing for my swim workout on Saturday, I found myself falling back into the old routine of training to train. The day before, I swam 5000 yards with the main set consisting of 3 x 1000's, negative splitting the 500's. I certainly did not need another long, aerobic swim set but that was where my mind was going on Saturday. It then dawned on me that I needed to break this bad habit of training to train, but instead, train to race. And just like that, I came up with a more race specific swim workout:

Warm-up: straight 800 broken down as 400 free, 200 back, 200 reverse IM

Straight 700 flutter kick broken down as 25 FAST, 75 moderate; 50 FAST, 50 mod; 75 FAST, 25 mod; 100 FAST, 300 hold best pace

4 x [3 x 50 @ :50]
-1. 12.5 yards ALL OUT off each wall
-2. Middle 25 yards ALL OUT
-3. Last 25 yards ALL OUT

4 x [5 x 100 Free @ 1:30, 1:25, 1:20, 1:15, 1:10 no extra rest in between rounds]
-Rounds 1 & 2 swim
-Rounds 3 & 4 pull [buoy, band, paddles]

Warm-down: 300 perfect freestyle technique

Total: 4400 yards

Like all of you, I spent the rest of Saturday glued to my computer watching the amazing performances at IM Melbourne, and then followed it up with the Mooloolaba World Cup race.