Set Of The Week: Distance Race Pace

U.S. Jordan Wilimovsky swims during his men's 1500-meter freestyle timed final at the Pan Pacific swimming championships in Gold Coast, Australia, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

Photo Courtesy: Rick Rycroft

Welcome to Swimming World’s Set Of The Week! This week’s set is a round of 100’s for distance freestylers. Moving through descend swims on increasingly tight intervals, this set will challenge your swimmers to control their race pace. Check out the set and it’s description below:

5 x 100 descend on 1:30

5 x 100 descend on 1:20

5 x 100 descend on 1:10

***Descend pace within each round:

#1 & 2: feel it out to set yourself up for a good descend

#3: 1,650 pace

#4: 1,000 pace

#5: 500 pace

The set is 15 x 100’s that are divided into three sets of five. Each set of five is a descend that works through mile, 1,000, and 500 pace before starting over again. The first two of each series should be used as active recovery and setting your swimmers up to be able to get down to the correct pace during the set. There is no rest between sets of five.

This is a great set for teaching swimmers control over their pace. It will be common to see swimmers start out too fast and then not be able to hold on to the correct pace throughout the rest of the set as the intervals drop down (similar to a “fly and die” approach you may see in many distance races). Emphasize that the push should come as the intervals get faster and that like this set, any distance race demands strategy and a plan.

If your swimmers are able to get through the set hitting all of their goal times you can always add additional rounds and change the progression of the intervals (dropping :05 seconds, for example, instead of :10). Successful completions of this set will have your swimmers finishing their races strong and prevent them from over-swimming the front half of their races. Happy swimming!

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use