Swimming Time Trials

An article by Debi Hazelden    2 Comments

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The first part of the week has been a bit of a loss for swim training, because of the big earthquakes this week Jellie Park pool has been shut for a few days. This is where I swim most mornings. They’ve left the outdoor pool open because QE11 is shut from earthquake damage. Usually the outdoor pool shuts in March. At the moment it’s open until July 15th, but hopefully longer.

It’s definitely hard getting the courage to get in there on a dark morning where the temperature is close to zero or below. There is usually mist over the pool, the pool has been at 21 degrees so it’s fine once you’ve done 5 or 10 mins of swimming. Although you don’t want to have long rests during your session as the air temperature is pretty cold!

One awesome thing is that you get in when it’s completely dark and as you swim it slowly gets lighter and lighter. When I get out it’s completely light. I love that. It’s like a competition for me. I try to finish my workout before it gets light.

It opened again this morning and I got to do my time trials I was supposed to do on Monday.

This was my workout:

Warmup

400m drills

Main Set x 2

800m 100% timed

200m easy

200m 100% timed

200m easy

100m 100% timed

Warmdown

Didn’t have time for this as had to get to work

These were my times this week Mid June 2011:

1st set

800m: 14:15

200m: 3:24

100m: 1:38

2nd set

800m: 14:03

200m: 3:19

100m: 1:39

Comments from coach: he hasn’t seen these ones yet He might see them on here. ha

Comments from me: Usually in a sprint race of 750m I’d do 12:55, so these seemed a little slow. A little slower than I’d like but with such a long session of time trials I think that’s expected. I picked up my speed in the second set which means I wasn’t swimming hard enough in the first set. The times are pretty close though.

30th May 2011

800m: 14:05 (I was disappointed with this time since in Sydney I swam 25:45 for 1500 which is faster than this, but his comments below made me happy)

200m: 3:26

300m: 5:08

200m: 3:27

Comments from coach: On my calculation your current 1500 mts swim time in a wet suit race allowing for, currents , buoy turns , getting a draft or not, swim course can be either short / long or spot on 1500 mts I would be predicting a time of 25 minutes 30 secs.

For a 2 km Half Ironman sea swim in a wet suit my predicted time 33 mins  45 secs.

You aren’t far off race times and with many months ahead you still carve some time off BUT the time you can keep making far better strides is on bike and run where we are taking minutes not seconds so enjoy the hill runs !!

Comments from me: My 800m time is a lot slower than Feb. I think this is because in Feb I was getting close to my A race of the year. The only other thing I can think of that i changed is I started doing tumble turns this time. I wonder if I’m slow at these which ads on time…?

14th February 2011 – Just before nationals, peaking and happy with these times

800m: 12:55
HR (28×6) = 168

200m: 3:06
HR (26×6) = 156

100m: 1:30
HR (27×6) = 162

Comments from coach: Times all looking good , equates to a 24 min 30 sec swim at Wellington compared with 27 ; 08 last year – if can pull back 2-3 minutes on bike and similar on run and a finish time around 2 hours 20 mnutes youll be on the podium – overall if can be 5-6 minutes faster thats very possible so sweat the hard stuff !!

My comments: In March nationals in Wellington I swam 26:05, not as fast as G predicted but still faster than last year.

21 December 2009 – Just starting with my coach

800m : 16:30sec

200m : 4:00sec

100 : 1:50sec

I had just started with Graham as a coach. Before that I was swimming about 1 hour a week. ha. Now it’s at least an hour, 4 times a week. I remember dying on these time trials, thinking 800m was so far! Now 800m is a walk in the park compared to that day.