Over the coming 12 weeks, I will post a series of workouts building your swim fitness as you prepare for either Challenge Wanaka (18 Feb) or Ironman NZ (04 Mar). I have been a professional triathlon coach since 2000 and am multiple Iron-distance finisher including doing both these events in 2011 (the year of the wind in Wanaka and the year of the rain in Taupo).
12 weeks out from Challenge Wanaka starts the week of Monday 28th November 2017. For those of you doing Ironman NZ two weeks later, your sessions will commence the week of Monday 12th December.
Each week will have three pool sessions for you to complete. I also encourage you to get in the open water once a fortnight to develop those skill sets. This can either be part of a triathlon or as a group open water swim. The pool-based sessions work well when completed on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday or on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Session One
This session is designed to assess where you are fitness-wise and help us set some future performance goals.
- 1,000m Warm Up;
- 12x 50m (25m Drill/25m Swim);
- 8x 25m Pick Up 10sec RI;
- 400m Time Trial (TT);
- 10min rest including easy swimming of at least 200m;
- 200m TT;
- 400m Cool Down;
Start by swimming 1,000m for a warm-up. Keep a nice steady pace and feel free to pause occasionally to stretch or grab a quick drink. The idea of the warm-up is to get the blood flowing and muscles loosened up before some of the more intense sets later in the workout.
The set after the warm-up includes 12 repetitions of 50m. This 50m is done continuously with the first 25m done as a drill before going straight into the final 25m of regular swimming. Pause after each rep and have a short rest while you focus and mentally prepare for the next drill. Here are some drills that you can include in your programme. Complete each drill twice:
For the drill, set wear a pair of short fins. These will provide you with a small amount of momentum whilst you are focusing on what the upper body is doing. I recommend Finis Zoomers.
As with the previous sessions that included the same set, the next set includes 8 repetitions of 50m. This 50m is done continuously with the first 25m done as a drill before going straight into the final 25m of regular swimming. Pause after each rep and have a short rest while you focus and mentally prepare for the next drill. Here are the drills for you to include in your programme:
Take your fins off prior to commencing the next set, which is a set of swim golf. For this set, you will need to time each repetition and also count the number of strokes it takes to swim 50m. The set itself involves swimming eight repetitions of 50m of Swim Golf (also known as Swolf) with 10 seconds Rest Interval after each rep. With each 50m time how long it takes you to swim it and count the number of strokes, it takes you to complete the distance. Add these times together, i.e. if it takes 50 seconds and you complete 50 strokes 50 + 50 = 100. The 100 is your Swim Golf score and just like golf you try and make your score as low as possible. Each rep you try and improve your score by lowering it either by:
- Swimming faster without doing more strokes,
- Swim more efficiently by taking fewer strokes and keeping the same pace, or
- By swimming faster and with fewer strokes.
Complete the last three sets again, with the third time for the 8x 25m Drill and the 8x 50m (25 Drill/25m Swim), prior to the cool down.
The final set is a 200m Cool Down. As with the warm-up feel free to pause and do some stretching and grab a drink. Also, consider doing some other strokes as part of the cool down. Throw in some backstroke (Bk) or breaststroke (Br) to mix it up.
If you would like further advice feel free to contact me.
I am the Head Coach & Director of Qwik Kiwi Coaching.
I specialise in assisting first-timers and recreational athletes to achieve their sporting goals. I can be contacted at coachray@coachray.nz and 021 348 729.
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If you enjoyed this workout, here is a similar session I published previously.
Saturday Swim Session: 150 KPS
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