[M_Six]

In cycling, at least, training every day is frowned upon, especially for older folks. Your body needs time to recover and it takes longer as you age. But a "rest" day can include an easy pedal around the neighborhood or in the case of swimming, just some relaxed strokes. One sure sign of over-training is hitting a plateau where you don't improve despite the training effort.

[chassis]

Originally Posted by M_Six

In cycling, at least, training every day is frowned upon, especially for older folks. Your body needs time to recover and it takes longer as you age. But a "rest" day can include an easy pedal around the neighborhood or in the case of swimming, just some relaxed strokes. One sure sign of over-training is hitting a plateau where you don't improve despite the training effort.

Thanks. I agree and so does my coach (my brother)! It feels right, for me, to take a rest day from hard interval training in the pool.

I like the idea of an easy run on non-interval days in the pool. I don't have a bicycle with me at the moment, unfortunately.

[MyZ4Coupe]

Good job on the training session, now you have a benchmark to work off of. I feel like I could probably do about the same as you at this point... although our pool is meters so that makes it hard to compare. My best so far is a 1:29 100m but I couldn't do six of them at that pace. 1:15/100 is crazy fast.

My main concern with training every day (other than time) would be whether I could recover and not get drained too much. Probably something you would have to experiment with?

[chassis]

I am going to take a rest day in between pool interval workouts. This is my brother’s recommendation and consistent with alot of what I see online.

On rest days I will likely do an easy beach run. Nice place to spend time in general and a short untimed beach run is part of the lifeguard employment requirement.

[chassis]

Originally Posted by MyZ4Coupe

Good job on the training session, now you have a benchmark to work off of. I feel like I could probably do about the same as you at this point... although our pool is meters so that makes it hard to compare. My best so far is a 1:29 100m but I couldn't do six of them at that pace. 1:15/100 is crazy fast.

My main concern with training every day (other than time) would be whether I could recover and not get drained too much. Probably something you would have to experiment with?

The official requirement is 500m in 10 minutes. 99% of the pools here are 25 yards so I am swimming 550 yards with a goal of 10 minutes.

[MyZ4Coupe]

Oh ok gotcha, that makes sense.

Swam this morning and my cold is still slowing me down. I did start trying to do consistent flip turns while swimming free and feel like I got some decent practice at them.... Just need to keep doing them. I got moved i to a faster lane so I am going to have to do them to keep up.

See if I can recall what we did...

3 x 3 x 100m. The three 100's were Free/Stroke/Free. 900m total
Then 12 x 50's in some combo of free and stroke I cant remember
300m kick changing kick every 75m
150m of pull with reducing number of breaths each lap. These ones kill me....

[chassis]

Pool training day.

One good 100
One 5 sec off pace
Four 10 sec off pace
100% flip turns

x 2

100% flip turns is an improvement. Tough workout!

[chassis]

Beach swim day. I swam ~150 yds in fairly high surf, 6'-8' swells from trough to peak. It was a red and purple flag day, meaning high surf, risk of rip current and stinging marine life (jellyfish, man 'o war). Waves were heavy and powerful on the beach but once beyond the break they were manageable. Once underway, the swim was easier than I expected. I didn't gulp any saltwater!

I spoke with a lifeguard on duty and he said the lifeguard qualification test would be conducted on a day like today, so I dove in!

[chassis]

Pool workout today. All 100s met the pace requirement!

I changed to well-executed open turns with strong push off the wall, from my poorly executed flip turns. And I added 30s rest between 100s. I was still gassed after 1:30 between 100s so now I am doing 2:00 rest.

Swim test is next Friday 10 days from now. I need to consolidate the gains and hopefully improve a bit more.

First set of 100s
1:30
1:30
1:35
1:35
1:40
1:40

30 minutes rest between sets

Second set of 100s
1:30
1:35
1:35
1:40
1:40
1:38

Goal is 1:40

[chassis]

Beach swim day. I swam 200 yards in low-medium surf and 15-20mph winds. 62F deg air temp, ~70F water temp. Water felt good, wind was cold when I got out!

Wind had a strong north component so I swam south and didn't fight the current. I was told the beach swim test would be done with the current, so all good there.

Good swim. As usual the challenge was orientation/navigation. It is challenging to get into a stroke and breathing rhythm, which requires head down, and maintaining course/navigation.

One navigation help is to always breathe facing the beach, where landmarks can be easily seen. The beach swim test is not timed, so perfect technique and speed are not needed.

[MyZ4Coupe]

My cold is pretty much gone now and thank goodness... we did a tough swim last night.

Warmup - 300m
2 x 150m - 50m Free/Swim/Free

Main Set - 1200m
3 x 4 x 100m on reducing times. 30 seconds rest between sets of 400m
First 3 x 400m on 2:10
Second on 2:00
Third on 1:50.

I held on to the pace until the last 2x100m... I was doing them at around 2:00m instead of holding 1:50.

10 x 50m - Backstroke, alternated between drill and stroke.

Warm Down
200m, Kick - mix of flutter,whip,dolphin.

Crawl out of pool.... lol.

[chassis]

^tough workout!^ Well done.

Making some adjustments in training. Eliminating rest days and swimming 550yd "races" to feel the target pace.

I bought a Garmin Forerunner 965 yesterday. It has more swim-oriented features than the Fitbit Versa 4 I have been using for 5 years. I am using a pace alert as a "metronome" to keep me from going out too fast then breaking down later in the race.

Yesterday I swam ~400yds in a coaching session with the lifeguards. They gave me 3 helpful suggestions:

- chin down to keep hips up and reduce drag. I agree I held my head too high and could feel my hips dragging/sinking from time to time

- glide more on each stroke. More propulsion with each stroke means speed is maintained at a lower heart rate by virtue of fewer strokes. This can be seen in the "swolf" metric on the Garmin.

- avoid bringing the opposite arm across the body when breathing. I definitely do this and am losing propulsion. This is in the catch & pull stage and I need to focus on pulling my hand down to the hip rather than to the navel.

- And a previous suggestion: strong push off the wall. The fastest moment in the pool is when you have pushed off the wall. I am not doing flip turns. My poor flip turn form was costing me time.

Putting all of this together, yesterday I swam a 10:06. Required time is 10:00. I have 4 more training sessions to shave off a bit more time and to stabilize on form/technique.

[chassis]

Swam a 10:03 this morning. There are one or two lengths (thanks Garmin!) late in the swim where I break down below target pace, then recover back to better than target pace.

I need to avoid falling into this bucket and I will be in the 9:45-9:50 range which I want to repeat a couple of times. Swim test (race day) is Thursday.

[chassis]

9:45
9:42

Today's focus was catch, pull and glide. In other words getting more useful work done with each stroke.

Keeping my head down/hips up still needs focus.

I am allowing myself to breathe every stroke (unilateral breathing) if I need it. I watched a video yesterday which stated "muscles need a continuous supply of oxygen". Basic fact. If I don't breathe every stroke in the middle of the race I break down and pace drops off. So I keep the oxygen supply going and it is a better overall solution, even though it is mechanically less efficient to breathe every stroke. The cardio benefit of more breathing is governing in this example.

Wall push-offs have been good. My Garmin has helped alot to pinpoint what I need to improve on.

I still tuck the arm opposite breathing under the torso. The coaching tip I received is arm tucking is a hard habit to break. I will work on it but the other improvement areas seem to be producing results so I will keep going on those.

Pretty happy with the progress. I need to be 10:00 or faster. Two more training days then a rest day then the swim test.

[chassis]

9:37
9:48

Four swims better than the required 10 minute time.

I am of two minds regarding starting out slower with the goal of a negative split. My brother the marathoner suggests this. I agree it is the best way to train and race. I feel like I need more time to achieve this.

At the moment I come out faster than the 1:40 training pace, then fade, then come back to pace. In the end, I have been achieving better than required time, just not with negative splits (getting faster through the race).

I have one more training day, tomorrow, which means two more swims. Then a rest day then the 550yd test on Thursday. Focus.

[MyZ4Coupe]

Nice work, keep it up!

[chassis]

Thanks! Feeling good and hoping and praying for a successful outcome!

[chassis]

9:42
9:48

6 swims under 10 minutes. Feels good. Tomorrow is a rest day and Thursday is the swim test.

[MyZ4Coupe]

Better swim tonight. 2km worth, 400m of kick... Feel like my legs are slowly getting stronger. I think my cold is completely gone too which helped a lot. I think I need to do some strength training for my legs... They have always been weak and after a couple laps of flutter kick they are just on fire and I have to switch to whip kick.

[MyZ4Coupe]

Originally Posted by chassis

9:42
9:48

6 swims under 10 minutes. Feels good. Tomorrow is a rest day and Thursday is the swim test.

Good luck tomorrow!!!!!!

[chassis]

Originally Posted by MyZ4Coupe

Good luck tomorrow!!!!!!

Thank you!!

I will report to this thread tomorrow afternoon.

[chassis]

I did it.

I swam 9:45 for 500m/550yds (the swim was in yards). This is in the middle of my training times. Thanks for the encouragement here, and from my brother who coached me. Training works!

After the pool swim, three other successful pool swim candidates and I went to the main local beach for beach skills tests. There were 7 or 8 total participants, so the pass rate was ~50% for the timed pool swim.

The beach tests were for completion and not timed. Skills were beach run, ocean swim, beach run, rescue board (large surfboard) paddle, then a beach simulated drowning CPR scenario. The last step was an interview in a conference room.

The beach runs were 200 yds each. The ocean swim and board paddle used the same course, set up by 2 buoys. The buoys were approx 150-200 yds off shore and 200 yards apart along the shore. So the swim and paddle portions were roughly 600 yards. Roughly 1600 yards of untimed activity on the beach + 550 timed yards in the pool.

Surf was fairly high. Standing in waist deep water, the breaking waves were much taller than me at 6'/183cm. I guess the surf was significantly higher than 6'/2m from trough to peak. The swim was very hard, but once beyond the break it became more manageable.

The board paddle was harder than the swim because of the high surf and challenges to control the board. Once through the break, paddling was tiring. Probably the main reason is that I don't have previous board paddling experience, although my physical condition is good. It is an exercise I am not practiced with - a training gap.

The interview was OK. It clearly would have helped to have previous lifeguarding experience. The job posting did not specify previous experience required.

In summary I enjoyed the whole process. They said we would hear back within a week.