Nov 17     Today I swam the 5 x 500 test set from five days ago in reverse. Here’s how it went.

10 x 50 on :50 (6:52)
5 x 100 on 1:40 (6:52)
4 x 125 on 2:00 (6:48)
2 x 250 on 4:00 (6:51)
1 x 500 (6:56)

I swam with the same conditions as last Wednesday.
Each swim at "relaxed cruise" pace.
Stroke count at or under 14SPL.
Breathe every 3 strokes.
Minimize kick – light, passive 2BK with feet separating minimally on each leg beat.
"Glide" pushoffs – I.E. Don’t kick coming off the walls; just hold streamline until momentum takes me nearly to the surface.

However, much was different. My pace was far more consistent, leading to a much faster average for the 5 x 500 (actually one continuous 500 and four broken 500s). My average pace when I swam 500 first and 10 x 50 last was 7:08/500 or 1.17 yards/sec. My average pace when I started with 10 x 50 and finished with 500 was 6:51/500 or 1.21 yards/second.

I believe the main reason for the significant improvement is that I have a highly developed ability for maintaining a pace as I increase distance — largely because I’ve spent so much time working on relaxation and replacing physical with mental effort, which I did today. My pace remained the same as I doubled my repeat distance from 50s to 100s – in part because I was pretty well warmed up when I started the set of 5 x 100. But then it increased again – to my fastest pace of the set – on the set of 4 x 125. So that suggests a good repeat distance for me at this time is 125s. I’ll repeat these two sets in December and prepare for them over the next few weeks with repeats in the 75-100-125 range.

My experience with these as test sets suggests a good test for any swimmer would be similar ladder-down and ladder-up sets to compare your performance going from longer to shorter repeats, with your performance going from shorter to longer. It’s likely that most swimmers will perform better going from long to short. If you can minimize the difference as you go from short to long that will indicate that your pacing sense ("clock in the head) is very strong.

You don’t need to swim 500s to get a clear sense. You could swim a set as short as 3 x 200 (200 – 2 x 100 – 4 x 50) or 4 x 300 (300 – 2 x 150 – 3 x 100 – 4 x 75).

If you do, please post your results in the Discussion Forum in Comment on Blogs.