Really pleased with tonight’s swim. Warm up, 16x 25m at different stroke rates from 60-70 with 62SPM feeling really good. At that rate a chap who swam for Leeds as a kid asked if I used to be a competitive swimmer. That’s why I pleased with the swim. After that 200m at different paces to 3km total swim but who cares, someone thought I could really swim 
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My main competitor in my club in the same age group as me did his CSS test on the same protocol. 1.17 
Thankfully I’m a better biker but that’s a big deficit to make up.
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I never had a CSS that good but was one of my clubs better swimmers. Another guy was better runner than me, similar ish on the bike.
We did a locally oly tri together and there was loads of banter from him on how he was going to beat me. He took a good chunk of time out of me on the run, but couldnt make up the 5 minutes I had nicked off him in the swim
Look at the google/snrokel hybrid!
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Would love to see how the lifeguards around here would respond to someone getting those snorkel/goggles hybrid and fin on 
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Climb in the local leisure center pools around Aberdeenshire with paddles and they react like you’re bringing in a toaster on an an extension cord. The life guards would soil the plastic seats of their towers if they saw that mask-snorkel combo.
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@Hammerer quick question. I’m making some progress with my pacing of multiple 50s and knocking a bit off my turnaround time. It’s down from 1:30 to 1:20 and I can just keep all 15 sets under 1minute. Should I keep at this type of 50s set to get more comfortable/bring time down further, or switch to focusing on trying to now achieve 2min/100m pace over 100m (which I’m still stuck around 2:05-2:08 at the minute).
Its difficult say say exactly but try mixing it up, maybe do a session of 25s, say 60-80x25 with no set time focusing on an area of your stroke, do a set of 50s, off maybe 1.15 now, then a longer easier set of 100s, or a pyramid even, 2*(50,100,150,200,150,100,50). Could vary intensity through that or add some take away sprints as well at the end, ie 50m reps of say 15m sprint 35m .
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Thoughts?
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Its interesting. Here is an n=2 example. I am 6’5", my arm span is 6’8". I had no swimming background from when I was younger. If I fell in a river I wouldn’t drown, but couldn’t swim more than 2 lengths without stopping.
Another chap was a lot shorter than me. I dont know his exact height but in the low 5 feet range. He also had no swimming background but had a lot of strength and other cardio background.
He was swimming 400m in 12 minutes at the start, after 3 years he had it down to about 7:30. My first attempt I could already do 7:53, within two years I was down to 6:04 and another few months after that I was at 5:51
In that instance I would say my height made a huge difference. But then again our coach who had a background is a few inches shorter than me and much faster.
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Yeah, you just stand up
I have the relative wingspan of a swimmer, about 3.5 inches more than my height but the height of a jump jockey. It was a great advantage when boxing as I rarely got ‘out reached’ by anyone below middle wieght and generally on par with them.
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I liked his explanation using the bell curve. In my experience, people over emphasise what they assume is obviously true.
My last tri swim club, they all were taller, fitter and had greater wingspan, bigger hands, bigger feet but I left them all for dust in the pool. Technique trumps pretty much everything.
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Yes but technique and wingspan beats just technique.
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They must have been shit 
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“You can only beat the people who turn up”
Or something like that 
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20 x 100m off 2:00 this morning, as my “pulling muscles” were very tender
What was “interesting” was focusing on one part in my stroke on some 100s once I’d warmer up.
Say, I’d really focus on rotation, then trying keep my hips up.
Bugger all difference to the time, as in zero.
Only time there was a noticeable difference, 1.5s, was when I upped the stroke rate.
This however came with a higher RPE
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100s starting with breathing every 2 strokes and working your way up as high as possible then back down.
Got to 10 but I’m sure I saw God beckoning me towards the light so decided 11 wouldn’t be a good idea and worked my way back down again 
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I did the 400 & 200 TTs last week after a few tiring days so thought my CSS would be “comfortable”.
Rocked up to swimming last night & we were given a Tempo Trainer. Most miserable swim of my life, ended up walking to the flags to keep myself somewhere near the beeps. I’m sure the piece of shit needs recalibrating.
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18x400 
Think I’m more disgusted in myself for enjoying it than I am proud.
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