8:04
No, that's not the time of day. It's not the time I got to work this morning, either (I haven't been at work for two weeks -- it's the holidays here!). And it's not the time I got up...
I went to last night's swim workout in a nasty mood (and no, it didn't start at 8:04). I thought we were just doing volume, so I was rather surprised when right after the warmup, my coach told us to do six 15 meter sprints, as this drill usually leads up to something fast. When we had finished that, I discovered what the main drill was -- 400 meters as fast as possible. Ugh. I wasn't up to it. I wasn't ready (I was still breathing hard from the sprints. I didn't want to do it.
We were three people in the lane. One guy took off and there were 10 seconds until the next person. I still wasn't ready, but the other guy told me it was my turn, so next thing I knew, off I went. I tried not to swim too hard, because my coach had told us we were supposed to have a negative split and I knew if I went out too hard, I'd never be able to do the second half even harder. Plus, I'm never really sure how hard I can swim for 400 meters -- I'm afraid of going out too hard and running out of steam.
The guy who had started ahead of me is normally a slightly faster swimmer, though we're pretty close as the distances get longer. For the first few lengths, we were meeting at the T. Then I noticed that he was passing me after I'd passed the T. Then I was tickling his feet (I'll be he enjoyed that!). Then I passed him. Hmm...
I finished first in my lane and waited for my coach to tell me my time. My previous PR at 400 meters was something like 8:52, I think. That was quite some time ago, but I haven't done too many timed 400s since then. I figured I would do around 8:30 or so. 22 seconds off my previous best time would be nice. So my coach says, "8:14." Wow! Nice time for me! But wait... He always gives the time for the first person to start in the lane and each subsequent person has to take off time, depending on how many seconds Yigal (the coach) waited between swimmers. So I told him I'd started second and asked how many seconds I had to take off. He told me ten. Ten? Oh, so I swam 8:04. 8:04?! That's pretty incredible for me (all you swimmers out there, please stop groaning -- it really is a fast time for me and my long-term goal is to be able to do 1500 meters in 30:00).
A few teammates have mentioned to me recently that my swimming has really improved. The problem is, we haven't done a time distance longer than 100 meters in quite a while and I'm not all that fast at shorter distances. Actually, my 100 meter time has improved, too. Whereas I used to struggle to do 2:10, I recently did 1:50. Yeah, I know, if I did 400 meters in 8:04, that's 2:01 per 100, which sounds perfectly reasonable if I can do 100 meters in 1:50, but 400 meters is a lot longer than 100 and requires a lot more pacing, at least for me. And the amazing thing is that I'm pretty sure I could have done it faster -- I didn't even push all that hard until the last 25 meters. If I had known I'd be so close to 8:00, I would have pushed a little bit harder to try to go 7:something. Next time...
I went to last night's swim workout in a nasty mood (and no, it didn't start at 8:04). I thought we were just doing volume, so I was rather surprised when right after the warmup, my coach told us to do six 15 meter sprints, as this drill usually leads up to something fast. When we had finished that, I discovered what the main drill was -- 400 meters as fast as possible. Ugh. I wasn't up to it. I wasn't ready (I was still breathing hard from the sprints. I didn't want to do it.
We were three people in the lane. One guy took off and there were 10 seconds until the next person. I still wasn't ready, but the other guy told me it was my turn, so next thing I knew, off I went. I tried not to swim too hard, because my coach had told us we were supposed to have a negative split and I knew if I went out too hard, I'd never be able to do the second half even harder. Plus, I'm never really sure how hard I can swim for 400 meters -- I'm afraid of going out too hard and running out of steam.
The guy who had started ahead of me is normally a slightly faster swimmer, though we're pretty close as the distances get longer. For the first few lengths, we were meeting at the T. Then I noticed that he was passing me after I'd passed the T. Then I was tickling his feet (I'll be he enjoyed that!). Then I passed him. Hmm...
I finished first in my lane and waited for my coach to tell me my time. My previous PR at 400 meters was something like 8:52, I think. That was quite some time ago, but I haven't done too many timed 400s since then. I figured I would do around 8:30 or so. 22 seconds off my previous best time would be nice. So my coach says, "8:14." Wow! Nice time for me! But wait... He always gives the time for the first person to start in the lane and each subsequent person has to take off time, depending on how many seconds Yigal (the coach) waited between swimmers. So I told him I'd started second and asked how many seconds I had to take off. He told me ten. Ten? Oh, so I swam 8:04. 8:04?! That's pretty incredible for me (all you swimmers out there, please stop groaning -- it really is a fast time for me and my long-term goal is to be able to do 1500 meters in 30:00).
A few teammates have mentioned to me recently that my swimming has really improved. The problem is, we haven't done a time distance longer than 100 meters in quite a while and I'm not all that fast at shorter distances. Actually, my 100 meter time has improved, too. Whereas I used to struggle to do 2:10, I recently did 1:50. Yeah, I know, if I did 400 meters in 8:04, that's 2:01 per 100, which sounds perfectly reasonable if I can do 100 meters in 1:50, but 400 meters is a lot longer than 100 and requires a lot more pacing, at least for me. And the amazing thing is that I'm pretty sure I could have done it faster -- I didn't even push all that hard until the last 25 meters. If I had known I'd be so close to 8:00, I would have pushed a little bit harder to try to go 7:something. Next time...
posted by bari | 23:45
2 Comments:
Sounds pretty incredible from me, who can only do a 25 m freestyle and have to stop huffing and puffing :)
well thats great news.
Post a Comment
<< Home