Training update, July 2008:
Well, we have now done our best, biggest and most appropriate bit of training - a monster long swim in Windermere itself! Read the blog to find out more. We are still swimming three times a week. Recently, two of these have been in the pool, and at the weekend we have been doing triathlons, outdoor swim and generally anything more exciting than more lengths! Having got our long open water out of the way though, we can see the benefit the pool sessions have had, so we shouldn't be too mean towards it! Only a couple of weeks of full on hardcore training to go then for the two weeks before the swim we get the bit we've been looking forward to all along - tapering!! We'll still swim, but maybe only twice a week and will do easier sessions. We're also going to eat a lot, to make sure we're as full of energy aiting to burst out of us as can be on the day! Can't wait!
Training update, May 2008:
We're now very aware that it's not really that long until the big day, so we're starting to do a lot more continual efforts and less interval sessions (although these definately help to break up the boredom!) as we think this best mimmicks what the actual swim will be like. Over the bank holiday weekend at the start of May (as I write) we are having a mini-training camp which consists of - Day 1: 5km interval session, Day 2: 3 hour continual swim, Day 3: open water swim in sea at Bournemouth. Also, the 100m long lido in Lymington opens at the end of May so I think we'll be down there a lot fairly soon...
Training update, March 2008:
Time is getting on so we've upped our swimming to three times a week. Following advice from other long-distance swimmers we're still concentrating on speed rather than endurance and will do so for maybe one or two months more before we start really cranking up the long swims. We've got five core interval sessions (see below). Two are 'short' at only 2km, two are longer at 4km and one session is 5km. All of them we try to swim as fast we we can, with the speed of the interval determining how much rest we get in between goes. In our three swims a week we will do one long, one short and one choice. The choice is most likely to be a long interval session or long steady swim for two or more hours. In addition to this we are also running two or three times a week and cycling to and from work which is improving our general fitness and helps us not get too bored of swimming! Here are the interval sessions:
2km #1: 250m warm up, 750m swim for time, 3 x 200m @ 4:00, 6 x 50m @1:00, 100m cool down
2km #2: 250m warm up, 8 x 50m @ 1:00, 4 x 100m @ 2:00, 2 x 200m @ 4:00, 2 x 100m @ 2:00, 4 x 50m @ 1:00, 150m cool down
4km #1: 250m warm up, 250m kick, 250m pull, 3 x 400m (1 @ 8:30, 1 @ 8:15, 1 @ 8:00), 10 x 50m @ 1:10, 5 x 100m @ 2:15, 8 x 50m @ 1:00, 5 x 100m @ 2:00, 150m cool down
4km #2: 250m warm up, 250m kick, 250m pull, 2 x 500m @ 10:00, 50m easy, 2 x 200m @ 4:15, 50m easy, 12 x 50m @ 1:10, 50m easy, 10 x 100m @ 2:15, 100m cool down
5km (pyramid session): 200m warm up, 6 x 50m @ 4:15, 4 x 100m @ 2:15, 4 x 200m @ 4:15, 4 x 400m @ 8:30, 4 x 200m @ 4:10, 4 x 100m @ 2:10, 6 x 50m @ 1:00, 200m cool down
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Our training will obviously be based around swimming and this page focuses on the sessions we have been doing recently. We also keep up our general fitness with generous dollops of cycling, running and gymming.
With the lack of any nearby facility for lake swimming, the majority of our training is, and will be, pool based, except for when we visit the Lakes or other wetter parts of the country! We made an official start to our training in September 2007, giving ourselves a year to build up to the big day. We have structured that year by saying that for the first 10 weeks we will swim once a week, the next 15 weeks twice a week and from late February 2008 three times a week, allowing a couple of weeks beforehand to taper. Our other fitness stuff has to fit around this and as we swim more, we will do less of the other stuff. We're not members of any clubs and just take it upon ourselves to make up sessions after research on the internet and in books.
We like to mix up our swimming sessions with a mix of "get in pool, swim for a long time, get out of pool" type sessions and more structured swims based on interval training. The former can be a bit boring but we don't think there's any substitute for just swimming a steady pace for a long time as this best mimics what will happen on the day. As of writing this (January 2008) we're up to about 2 hours (about 3.5 miles) with these.
Here is a selection of more structured interval type sessions that we do (figure in brackets indicates rest between all out sprints):
- 2x100m (60s), 2x200m (30s), 2x400m (15s), 2x200m (30s), 2x100m (60s) (2 km total)
- 250m fast (30s) 250m slow (30s) x 5 (100 lengths/2.5 km total)
And thanks to Andy (see October blog) who has just sent us some sessions of a Channel swimmer friend of his. We have adapted these to the following sessions, which are a bit more straightforward, and for our pace, much more achievable - the originals were very fast!
1. 300m warm up, 3 x 400m @ 8:00, 10 x 50m @ 1:10, 5 x 100m @ 2:00, 50m cool down, 8 x 50m @ 1:00 (2950m total)
2. 500m warm up, 2 x 500m @ 10:00, 50m cool down, 12 x 50m @ 1:10, 50m cool down, 9 x 100m @ 2:15, 100m cool down (3200m total)
3. 300m warm up, 300m kick, 300m pull, 1500m swim for time, 5 x 200m (3 @ 11:00, 1 @ 10:30, 1 @ 10:00), 100m cool down (5000m total)
4. 300m warm up, 300m kick, 3 x 1000m (1 @ 20:30, 1 @ 20:00, 1 @ 19.30), 12 x 50m @ 1:00, 5 x 100m @ 2:00, 2 minutes rest, 8 x 25m @ 0:35, 100m cool down (5300m total)
5. 300m warm up, 300m kick, 300m pull, 8 x 50m @ 1:00, 6 x 100m @ 2:00, 6 x 400m (2 @ 8:30, 2 @ 8:15, 2 @ 8:00), 6 x 100m (3 @ 2:30, 3 @ 2:00), 100m cool down (5000 m total)
