Till the lights go out

Oryx

Nothing yesterday, I was doing the TO course in Dublin. I got the feeling there were a few boards heads there but most remained under cover.

This morning I took a few lads on a coached session of xc hill reps. It seemed to go well, and good experience for me.

Then I went out for a short bike. It was hard to know what to wear, it felt chilly at first, but by halfway I was overheating. The wind was a friend and a foe depending on the direction, but if it makes you work its a good tool. 43k covered, with some decent enough hills. A longer ride would have been better but I've got to build back up slowly or ill break down again!

Oryx

In an effort to rebuild myself and get back to where I need to be, I'm taking a few weeks where I go back to base work. This means solid, but easy effort, working at an aerobic level. I hope this will let me recover from whatever is up, while still keeping me strong. Hope

I haven't done a decent run in weeks, so today I did a (semi) lsr. Usually once I bring the pace down I can run all day, and its very relaxing. Today, not so much. The lack of running really showed, I felt clumsy and sluggish. It took ages to settle in and get to that point where you forget you are running. I picked a route thats downhill for the first half and uphill for the home stretch, but the second half felt better.

Unlike the other logs, I'm not happy enough with my fitness or my training to get all poetic yet. If I start to wax lyrical about daffodils and stuff, youll know I'm better.

Oryx

I managed to get in to the pool for a swim tonight. Had given myself a plan to work from and I got it done though I didn't hit my times accurately. My form was suffering so as the set went on I took more rest than allocated, but still tried to swim them hard (I did slow though)

300 wu
100 drag fingers (ripple)
100 kick
100 touch thigh (pull)
100 catch up (pull)
10 x 100 off 2.10
4 x 50 off 1.00
200 sd

I got a sneak preview of tomorrows club set. Bloody 100m tts. He picked a right week for it!

Am proper tired now but it's a good tired.

Oryx

Woo.. more swimming today. The dreaded tt session. I really hate 100m sprints. But the coach loves them so it had to be done.

600m warmed us up and I took that handy. Then on to 4 x 100 pb effort. I was second in my lane and went out trying to be steady and strong rather than thrashing up the lane. It seemed to work. I caught the guy ahead at the last length even though I didnt get past him on the final push. I did get a bit of a free ride on his feet for a stretch though. The sets continued like that but for the last one, when he agreed to let me lead (I had offered all along) Times:

1.40, 1.45, 1.47, 1.47

Happy enough. Slow by the standards around here, but good for me. We then did 16 x 25 easy/hard off 30. They were ok. 100 sd.

Getting through this was good. I struggle mentally and physically with short hard repeats, so this was progress.

Dory Dory

^^^^^ Whoop whoop!!!

Oryx

Rest day yesterday, those days off are far too easy to take these days....

Just a short leg loosener today, 5k in the frost as the sun came up. I hate the cold weather except when Im running. Then, I love it.

Our swim coach has put on his 'bad cop' hat and has sent us our homework, a series of sets which we have five weeks to complete. There are only 5 sets. Sounds hunky dory, right? Except the shortest set is 8000m, and the total distance is 42950m. And this is additional work to our normal sessions. Now, I know I havent got an 8k set in me yet, and it would be foolish to try, but I am going to chop the sessions up a bit, and see how much of the distance I manage to get done in the five weeks. I want to see the effect it will have. Plus thoughts of shotgunmcos' swim progression will be rattling around my brain!

Oryx

Turbo tonight. Another low turnout but us few did the session anyway. It was a complicated and high effort main set of hill reps, one minute up through the higher gears in 10 second increments repeated 3 times with a two minute break. Done four times. Sounds easy but it really hurts at the end of each minute. Happy to have got it done.

Ive been struggling with an allergy to an as yet unknown source since Christmas and dammit if it hasn't flared up again today. My eyes are swollen and I feel like I have sunburn. Why does my body hate me so?

shotgunmcos

43k in 5 sets? That's 5*okane or DoryDory style sets :eek: was he serious? Did he give nutrition and recovery tips?

Edit: never mind. 43k in 5weeks very doable, circa 3k a set for 3 a week. Although I'd favour 4 2k sets a week. Tech, tech, hard, aerobic

Oryx

shotgunmcos wrote: »

43k in 5 sets? That's 5*okane or DoryDory style sets :eek: was he serious? Did he give nutrition and recovery tips?

He gave it as five sets, with overall completion times. Though he said we can break them up if we need to. No other advice was given apart from 'get cracking'.

Oryx

Early swim today. Quite a few turned up so my lane was busy. Had taken a chunk of 'epic set no 1' and written it out, knowing I wouldn't get it all done but to see how far I could get.

400 wu
8 x 50 kick
400 lungbuster w pull
2 x 400 pull
200 easy
Aaaand then I ran out of time so I finished up.
2300 total

Missed out on a whole set of 5 x 75 but that was optimistic of me anyway in the time I had. I need to get faster!

Only 40,650m to go...

Oryx

In case anyone wants to do the whole set in one hit, here it is.

Session 1:
800m w/u
20 x 50m kick
400m lung buster pull
8 x 400m pull
400m lung buster pull
200m loosen up
20 x 75m
500m SD
Total: 8,000m
Time: 130mins*

*Ha!

griffin100

Oryx wrote: »

In case anyone wants to do the whole set in one hit, here it is.

Session 1:
800m w/u
20 x 50m kick
400m lung buster pull
8 x 400m pull
400m lung buster pull
200m loosen up
20 x 75m
500m SD
Total: 8,000m
Time: 130mins*

*Ha!

Have a look here for some monster sets.

There's a 15 x 1,500m set with 1 minute rest between in there somewhere:eek:

Oryx

griffin100 wrote: »

Have a look here for some monster sets.

There's a 15 x 1,500m set with 1 minute rest between in there somewhere:eek:

I liked this one:

Every March in Cork we have an overnight 8hr session.

3 lanes, 200+ x100m on 2, 210+ x100m on 1:50, 220+ x100m on 1:40.

Choose your lane or move around, stop for toilet & food as required.

Kurt Godel

Oryx wrote: »

In case anyone wants to do the whole set in one hit, here it is.

Session 1:
800m w/u
20 x 50m kick
400m lung buster pull
8 x 400m pull
400m lung buster pull
200m loosen up
20 x 75m
500m SD
Total: 8,000m
Time: 130mins*

*Ha!

That's not an appropriate set for your training, surely you can see that? Can't see how the advice to "break it up" is any use either- you'd be be better off doing 8km as 3 or 4 (properly structured) sessions.

Oryx

Explain properly structured. And I have no intention of doing the whole set in one go.

Kurt Godel

Oryx wrote: »

Explain properly structured. And I have no intention of doing the whole set in one go.

(caveat, limited knowledge, disclaimer, etc.)

Well that set you posted is structured between a (longish) warm up and swim down. I don't see the point of doing such a long WU or SD if you were only to do (say) the 20x50m kick from that set- in any case you'd then be making up the structure of the set yourself. So you'd be doing a different type of set, with a different structure, and really that is what the coach should be instructing you on.

Examples of different structured sets can be found on interested's spreadsheet second post this thread, or tunney's examples, or others. But breaking up and 8k set into smaller parts, when you don't really know what you're doing... I can't really see how you'd stumble onto a winning formula that way.

Oryx

Kurt Godel wrote: »

(caveat, limited knowledge, disclaimer, etc.)

Well that set you posted is structured between a (longish) warm up and swim down. I don't see the point of doing such a long WU or SD if you were only to do (say) the 20x50m kick from that set- in any case you'd then be making up the structure of the set yourself. So you'd be doing a different type of set, with a different structure, and really that is what the coach should be instructing you on.

Examples of different structured sets can be found on interested's spreadsheet second post this thread, or tunney's examples, or others. But breaking up and 8k set into smaller parts, when you don't really know what you're doing... I can't really see how you'd stumble onto a winning formula that way.

Ive been doing a lot of stumbling from the start, Ill be honest. Very little guidance going on in my overall structure, so its self taught. This applies to all the disciplines. Its one of the reasons I am getting into coaching. To increase my own understanding, and to also (hopefully) prevent new club members floundering as much as I did at the start.

When it comes to swimming, Im only recently (very recently!) applying structure and pacing to my training. The set I did this morning would be a big improvement on what Ive done previously. It may not be a winning formula but its certainly better. You will see I did break it down proportionally from the original set, while still preserving the structure. I dont see that as wrong?

Kurt Godel

Oryx wrote: »

I dont see that as wrong?

I'm certainly not going to disagree with you, if stumbling and intuition works for you, great. But for the sake of argument, when you say you missed out on the set of 5x75, what would they have added/lessened from your set? (Another way of asking, why were they there in the first place?)

Oryx

Kurt Godel wrote: »

I'm certainly not going to disagree with you, if stumbling and intuition works for you, great. But for the sake of argument, when you say you missed out on the set of 5x75, what would they have added/lessened from your set? (Another way of asking, why were they there in the first place?)

Personally, they would have been working on my pace and endurance. The end of a session is my best time to work on that aspect, rather than the beginning.

I knew I would miss out that bit, the other bits, Pull and lungbusters, I knew would work on my arm stroke and rotation, which I need. And kicking always needs to be first imo, as you need to be fresh. I have a woeful kick. So in terms of what I chose to do, it wasnt a random chucking in of bits. Ideally, I would have a coach on deck barking a session at me and correcting form. But I have neither the time nor the money to make that happen. So stumble I shall!

Kurt Godel

I thought you already had a swim coach? Doesn't he correct form from the deck?

Personally speaking, I'm amazed at the amount of bad reasoning I was applying to swimming, before we started our (once a week) coached sessions. Having someone who knows what he's talking about, tell me "do this, this, and this" after seeing me swim 200m, saved me more time than I can imagine- time I (personally) would have wasted by stumbling about. For such a technical discipline, there's a lot more specifics than working out what suits you best in running or biking.

But each to their own of course, and if it works for you, and you're happy with the progress, then thats what its all about.

Oryx

Kurt Godel wrote: »

I thought you already had a swim coach? Doesn't he correct form from the deck?

Occasionally, during the once a week set. But hardly ever, really.

But each to their own of course, and if it works for you, and you're happy with the progress, then thats what its all about.

No it doesnt, but Im making the best of a bad lot, and getting really good one on one coaching (in b2r) when I can afford it.

Would that I had your coach.

shotgunmcos

griffin100 wrote: »

Have a look here for some monster sets.

There's a 15 x 1,500m set with 1 minute rest between in there somewhere:eek:

:eek::eek::eek: Mother of divine Jesus :eek::eek::eek: mad stuff

Oryx

shotgunmcos wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek: Mother of divine Jesus :eek::eek::eek: mad stuff

Yup. No matter how mad you are, someone is worse.

Oryx

Did the first of the national coaching series workshops today. What an eye opener in terms of strength and conditioning and run training. Really good stuff from both lecturers. I cant wait for the next one.

shotgunmcos

Oryx wrote: »

Yup. No matter how mad you are, someone is worse.

The worrying thing is that I scanned the lot for one Id realistically give a go. Birthday is in 4 weeks!

Oryx

shotgunmcos wrote: »

The worrying thing is that I scanned the lot for one Id realistically give a go. Birthday is in 4 weeks!

Look at you hinting for a present

Dory Dory

shotgunmcos wrote: »

The worrying thing is that I scanned the lot for one Id realistically give a go. Birthday is in 4 weeks!

Oryx wrote: »

Look at you hinting for a present

I'm just hoping it means sin #2 will be taken in the form of birthday cake.

Oryx

Yesterday was a Sunday, and thats usually a 'big day' for training. But it didnt happen. I remained curled up and comatose till noon. Then relaxed with my daughter. I needed rest more than I needed to train. Eventually in the evening I did an hours spinning on the turbo to shake off the cobwebs.

I feel so much better for it today. Went for a swim, and I set my own plan based on my limiters.
400 wu
8 x 50 kick
100 cu w pull
100 ripple w pull
100 touch thigh w pull
100 one arm w pull
400 lungbuster w pull
100 easy
10 x 50 swolf (114 - 106, which id better for me)
6 x 100 off 2.15 (should have been 10)
Then I ran out of time cos the pool was booked for classes, so a 100m sd and out.

2900 in 85 mins. My catch is weak and the one arm and catch up really helped with that. My swolf scores, while still poor, are much improved on the 120 somethings I have been doing. A good session overall. Just sorry I didn't get to do it all.

Oryx

Went to kettlebells tonight. My first bit of s&c work in about a month. It was tiring, particularly the squats. But my shoulder held up well. Mostly used a 12kg. Hopefully I'll get back to 16 for a lot more of it in a few weeks.

shotgunmcos

Dory Dory wrote: »

I'm just hoping it means sin #2 will be taken in the form of birthday cake.

No chance! Oh and an appeal, the chocolate on the rice krispies buns was gluten free, not my usual choice...

No birthday cake. A birthday swim set.