Diving into training – 2400m Swim Workout

This winter, due to a pesky hip injury, I took quite a bit of time off my regular training. I hadn’t been in a pool for nearly 6 months when I dove in yesterday.  I managed to get my own lane for most of my workout, so some quality interval training happened.

One of my favourite sets is 10x100m Freestyle. Normally, I’m clocking my 4-length interval around 1:20-1:30, and giving myself 15s rest, meaning I’m performing the interval on a 1:45. Yesterday was not so good. My 100m ended up being exactly a 1:30-1:35 as I got deeper into the set. My cardio was fine, my heart rate was low, but my  muscles were SCREAMING. I decided to act with compassion and complete the set on 2mins to allow myself the 15s rest I need in order to keep up a sprint.

Sometimes we think that we’ve fallen pretty far in terms of training. Sometimes we wonder why we ever took time off. Yesterday, I got over it pretty quickly. The only way to get back to my usual pace (and faster) was to do what I could in the moment and commit to re-training. No sense being hard on myself for a 15s loss in time. I’ll make it up.

Here’s my 2400m “Dive back in” swim workout:

Warm up: 400m choice

Set 1: 10x100m Freestyle (on 1:45 or a good interval for you)

Set 2: 8x50m Kick with board (on 1:05, or a good interval for you)

[optional] Set 3: 400m steady pace choice (I like to throw some backstroke in here since the kickboard kills my shoulders)

Cool down: 200m choice

Don’t forget to re-fuel with some protein or you’ll be a carb-chow-hound all day!

What’s your favourite swim workout?