Yes indeed the intervals are all pretty hard when you are aiming for 45secs per lap. Well, for me that is pretty hard considering I am only 158cm and for us little ones we have to stretch even further.

However, today I did mix it up and decided to sleep in and swim a little later than the crazies at 5. I did a 900m warm up of 200 free and 100 pull x 3 sets. Then decided to crack into a 1km free for all (the distance of the tri I am aiming for).

It was awesome! Felt so good endurance wise and my legs and arms were working in unison. Felt like a real pro. Time wise - well, I did it in approximately 22 minutes. Which isnt too bad as I wasnt going hard out as I wanted to see how I would feel for race day.
I wasnt pooped and I still felt on the ball.

Anyway, thanks for your opinion glbrum. Its good to know others find the intervals hard too.

chav

Everyone is going to be different in where their HR falls. I tend to be a little lower than most people I train with. For example, I'll usually hold 150-155 for long runs, while a friend of mine holds 165 at the same pace. However, if I run at 165, I can only hold it for maybe 6 or 8 miles and I'm done. In swimming intervals, though, I tend to hold anywhere from 160-190 depending on how hard the set is. Have you ever had a REALLY good coach look at your stroke? Swimming is by far the hardest discipline to learn good technique, and it is also the discipline where technique is most important. Perhaps having your stroke tweaked would let you open up a bit, raising your HR...and dropping times ;)

Once, I asked the coach why I was so much slower with the pull buoy? Usually Im faster than the others in my lane but only when swimming normally. All he said was that some people have no problem keeping their bodies straight in the water but others sink with their legs.

That's about all the adivce Ive gotten. Otherwise, we do drills but I think my technique is okay. I pull a lot more with my right arm than my left which gives me a sore rotator cuff but I get a massage every 2 weeks to relieve it.

I think Ill start breathing on the other side for a few sessions. That would definately get my HR way up.

In the same way that you can do a field test to find your lactate threshold pace for running and biking, you can do a field test to find the swimming pace that is appropriate for you. Since, as you say, you don't wear a HRM in the pool, you are training by pace anyway, so your actual HR is not any concern, other than as a curiousity.

For a 1km swim event, Gail Bernhardt recommends doing a Time trial test of 3x 300m/yd as fast as you can reasonably sustain for the 300 yards, with 30 seconds rest between sets. A good test is when the total times between the first and third sets are less than 15 seconds apart. That means that your effort was about the same across each session.

Average the times for the 3 sets and divide by 3, giving you your "T-pace" for 100 yards. This is analgous to your lactate threshold pace in running or biking. YOur workouts can now be designed around this pace to customize workouts for you. The intervals you are doing may not be appropriate for your T-pace, unless you want to work on sprint power, which I'm guessing you don't.

Just a few thoughts, hope it's helpful.

-Suzanne

I don't think there is a specific warmup recommended, but probably 5-10 minutes of easy swimming to get stetched out and yoru muscles warmed up a little bit. There are other variations of this protocol as well, but they all result in giving you a time per 100 that's analagous to LT pace. Do sets at T-pace + 5 seconds to focus on general endurance, workouts at t-pace to develop muscular endurance (the ability to push at or near your threshold pace for a longer period fo time), and sets above your T-pace to work on anaerobic development and power.