When “coming back,” I wondered how everyone was now so quick.
Having bought a powerMeter, training with it and dipping a little bit into some metrics, I can see how!
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Not all of us mate. Some of us are still quite sh*t and slow.
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Dry Robe and £300 for a Half. I’m starting to worry about you.
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Entrepreneurs Relief, my friend 
Anyways…went to swim this morning, tri club in half of the pool, other half was breast stroking OAPs.
The tri club coach took pity on me and invited me into their session…
…warmed up with some kick and easy front crawl, then into some hard 200s as:100/50/50, with 10s RI, then 90s between each rep.
Bloody hard session, but hit 1:26, 1:27, 1:26 and failed with a 1:28 final 100.
50s were all between 42 and 44.
That’s five swims in seven days for me, only 8km, but it’s coming back…
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I gave the session posted above by @Hammerer a go this morning, 4x100 10s rest, with extra 1:40 rest after 400m. Made it through 3 sets before quitting, tough session to hold on.
Will happily attack FTP/VO2 sets on the bike but struggle to push self in the pool anymore, but that was much needed.
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What were you going “off” when you factor in that 10s rest? And how does that compare loosely to a rough CSS?
yes i’ve adapted that a bit over the years as well. Still same sort of pace and a stretch of your CSS/ 1km pace. I’m more likely to use between 200 and 400 pace as the gauge to hit, depending who Im working with. Im sure i mentioned that above. One reason is I rarely test in the pool now, especially CSS as I find it a bit pointless. Testing in a training cycle is so variable, you haven’t rested into it properly and lots can depend on what you ate, how much stress you are under, did you drink too much coffee today did you ride to work, was the weather bad! and also it can put kids under too much pressure especially if they have a bad day and are slower than before, which happens a lot due to the reasons above!. I’m more into using race performance to guide me, especially with swimmers or broken sets and general trends to guide me. I can pretty much guess a time based on what they are swimming for various sets in training anyway these days through experience and working with athletes over a period of time.
I think that type of thinking works in all training TBH. You can feel the improvement with the combination of RPE and whatever the relevant output measure would be. Nothing wrong with testing but all the training data should feed your training levels not just specific tests.
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Yeo sorry @stenard this reply not be much use, for reasons similar to hammers response. Ive never done a CSS test, wasnt somethinf id ever even heard of swimming only heard the term when came across to tri. Now i still just go off for feel, which appreciate is harder to judge and develop.
this morning I did 4x100 off 1:20. I set off at an effort that felt about right, and set one went 68 69 69 69. First one felt quite controlled, 4th one getting very heavy arms, lot of fatigue, probably best effort but maybe xould have done 68 if there was huge drive. Set 2 3x69 and a 70. Starting to think about stopping, but persuaded myself to attempt 3rd set = 68 69 70 71. Now feeling like water is treacle, so 4th set would probably have been something closer to 68 then 71-73s.
For context, i could probably fairly happily swim 1500m at 1:20 pace in training conditions. One usual benchmark set is 10x200 off 2:50 and I’ll currently hold 2:24s.
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HE’S A WITCH!
BURN HIM
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I expected more along the lines of: of course you had a good swim, thats a lot 69s. Missed your opportunity.
@Hammerer so this 4*100 set thing. My CSS is currently 1:36, so what should I be swimming the reps off, 10s rest, or off 1:50? Then a longer rest block between sets (around 80s?)…assuming I can manage more than one set 
for you I’d go off 1:35ish swim and rest, judging by that CSS. What was your 200 time if it’s about 2:50 that would also signal holding 1:25s so off 1:35’s. basically it should be very hard on the first attempt through to even get past the first set of 4! after each 4 i would typically let the clock get back to the top and another minute. nothing hard and fast as its not about actually physiological changes but teaching the body to hurt and lettign it feel what its like to go a bit faster so it adapts.
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Going back to Charles’ original adivce, I think that is too soft for a stretch session. You want to be going faster than CSS, I reckon off 1:40 would be the ‘stretch’ you’re after. But H will be along soon to sort this out.
I’ve got one planned for tomorrow with warm up involving kick set 
then o arm - full swim, then the 100m coming in 5s faster than CSS with 10s rest.
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this wasn’t even a solar session, one i got from my swim coach and adapted to CSS to keep it tri relevant. but yes i replied up there. Jorgans is more a threshold set.
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I’ll shut up then 
I must have been mistaken as I’m sure a set like this appeared in the 100m V Oly thread. We must have been typing at the same time.
ETA: As it happens that’s exactly how I have paced mine, using 200m time, etc.
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200 time was 3:05, although I went off a bit slow. No way I could do a 1:25 at the moment, and repeat it at least.
Whatever, I will go and hurt myself at the pool in a bit.
try 1:30’s then
You mean 1:30 off 1:40? I hope that’s what you mean
yes lol