Swim Test Time!

As this is a recovery week and on my last recovery week I did no testing, this week will have somee testing. After this week I will move into my last base block (3 weeks on, 1 week recovery). For the last base block I am going to focus on adding in some more intensity during the break through workouts and less intensity during the non-break through workouts.
I really wanted to have this test be about focus as well. I wanted to push mentally as well as physically. Sometimes it is easy to just go out and hammer, but to try to really focus all the way through the effort can be hard. I wanted to think about a strong smooth stroke on every stroke for the entire 1K.
This was a 1000 yard time trial, which I have done 2 other times. 1st time was way back in December and I hit just under 15 minutes. The second time was a huge jump and I hit 14:30 exactly. This time I did not expect as big a jump. I did a little longer warmup this time. I followed Gordo's plan (from his book Going Long) basically.

Warmup

• 10 minutes easy swim
• 5 minues steady swim (T Pace + 4-5 seconds)
• 6x50 with 25 build, 25 easy
• 6x50 with 12.5 sprint rest easy

This was done with about 20-30 seconds between each of these. I did jump out to use the bathroom after the first 6x50. I also took a little longer break to get setup after the last 6x50 so I did another 50 building on both 25's.
It seems like every time I do this test I end up with someone in my lane and it usually isn't until after I start. I started a little later this time, hoping that things would clear out. I was wrong again. The good news was that I only had about 200 to go when someone jumped in. The bad news was that this guy is pretty fast and big, so he created a pretty decent current that I could actually feel every time I passed him. It didn't help that right on the other side of the rope from me someone big was also swimming. So I think I might have lost a couple of seconds, but nothing I am going to factor in as this has happened every time. It was good practice for focusing when I was tired. I really tried to make sure I came off the wall strong as well and stayed as needle like as possible.
So on to the test. I always intend to start out slower, but again, I didn't do very good on this. The first 200 I came in at 2:43. So I just tried to stay even. Felt good through the middle. Really started to feel it the last 300. But I felt the effort was pretty even the whole set. Touched the wall at 13:56. I was pretty surprised by this and had to think through weather or not I had skipped a lap. But I did the math and realized that this must have been right. My 100 yd avg was 1:23. This is pretty nice and is about a 3 second improvement for my LT pace and over 30 seconds faster than my last 1000 yard effort. I think a lot of this gain is due to overall fitness and for the last block of base I am really going to focus on form again and cut back on overall yardage (but keeping the workout time volume the same).
So I definetly classify this as a success.

Dave