Set Of The Week: “Race Pace” 175’s

This week’s Set Of The Week is from Coach Jake Lichter, an assistant coach at Wellesley College.

Coach Lichter describes this set as a great middle distance set that can also be used with your stroke groups. While it may look simple, this challenging set is designed to get your swimmers up and going fast while also making them thoughtful about their goals for the end of the year. Take a look at the set below:

4 x (3 x 175 on 2:30 descend 1-3 to 200 goal time)

The ultimate goal of the set is to get swimmer’s to descend down to a 175 that is the the same time as their goal 200 time. For example, if a swimmer has a goal of going 1:40 in the 200 freestyle their goal is to hit 1:40 or faster on the last 175.

Coach Lichter suggests using the first two 175’s of each round as active recovery, taking advantage of the interval to have a pretty dramatic descend down to the fast third 175. While not true “race pace” work, this is a great set to introduce to your athletes early in the season to get them thinking about where they want to be at the end of the year.

This is also a great set to use with stroke swimmers. Alternating between full stroke or stroke drill as part of the descend can help them prepare to swim fast on the third 175. In total, this workout gets in 2,100 yards with some high intensity swimming in just 30 minutes, so it makes a great set on days when pool time is limited or the day calls for more volume in a short amount of time.

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