News

  • Clarification on swim pace for Muscular Endurance Distance swim card #3

    Q.   In "Swim Workouts for Triathletes" Muscular Endurance (Distance) card #3, it says Race Pace + :30. Does this mean go 30 seconds faster than race pace? What confuses me is it also says “swim each 50 1-5 sec. Faster than race pace”  -- T. S.

     
    A.   Hi T.S.,

    First, thanks for picking up a copy of Workouts in a Binder for Triathletes. Sorry for the confusion on ME Distance #3.

    What is intended on the card is that your swim interval for the 300s is your race pace, plus 30 seconds. For example, let's say you can average 1:30's per 100 on race day for 0.9 miles of swimming (Olympic distance). Converted to 300, that would be 3 x 1:30 or a 4:30 time. Adding 30 seconds to that time, for your swim interval you will push off the wall every 5:00 and swim 4 x 300s. We didn't specify a pace for the 300s - only that you push off the wall at your designated swim interval. After the last 300, take an extra minute of recovery.

    Then move to the 50s, that we would like to see faster than race pace. Using the 1:30 pace per 100 example, it converts to 45 seconds per 50. So, your swim interval is 1:15 (you push off the wall every 75 seconds) and the goal is to swim the 50s at 40 to 44 seconds  (1-5 seconds faster than the designated race pace.

    Start with the paces from your Olympic distance swims. If you find that is too easy, do an all-out timed 300 or 500 and use that as "race pace".

    Hope that helps,

    Gale

  • ← Next Post Previous Post →

  • Leave a comment

Home / News / Clarification on swim pace for Muscular Endurance Distance swim card #3