Over the coming 12 weeks, I will post a series of workouts building your swim fitness as you prepare for either Challenge Wanaka (20 Feb) or Ironman NZ (05 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 30th November. For those of you doing Ironman NZ two weeks later, your sessions will commence the week of Monday 14th December.
This is the sixth week. Other weeks can be found below:
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.
This week’s training is continuing to develop your base fitness with a strong focus on technique and endurance.
Session One
This session is designed to further your endurance and increase your swimming-specific strength.
- 1,000m Warm Up;
- 8x 50m (25m Drill/25m Swim);
- 4x 400m (1st PP, 2nd Padd, 3rd PB, 4th F/S) 60sec RI;
- 8x 50m on 1/2T+5sec RI;
- 12x 25m Kick 10sec RI;
- 200m 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 eight 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:
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.
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