Not quite ready for the 10K

Well, at least not yet.  I attempted to swim 10K today (where the K means 1000 and not kilometer). I modeled today's workout on friend of the blog Evan's epic 25K pool swim.  I took his workout, and took 60% off of all his sets:

• 400
• 4×100
• 400
• 2×200
• 600
• 2×300
• 600
• 3×200
• 800
• 4×200
• 800
• 2×400
• 600
• 2×300
• 400
• 2×200
• 400
• 4×100

I made it up to the four italicized sets; just couldn't keep going.  Don't know if it was the time or the muscles, but I was ready to get out.  The 8400 yards took me 2:27.34.  If I did the math right, that's about 1:45 per 100, counting all the rest.  I tried to keep the breaks between sets short, on the order of :10-:15.  At the start, though, I had to adjust a few things and even move lanes when kids started showing up.  

I had swum 2+ hour sets before, as recently as Tuesday's 2:12 minute workout.  But never something broken up like this.  I of course had to swim the 100s fast, as well as the 200s.  That's different from the 6 x 22:00 I did on Tuesday.  Steady paced 22's was easier than the 8400 I did today.  But one of these days I want to swim 3+ hours, which is what it would take me to do 10,000!

Comments

[evan]

Nice workout! I bet if you went back and tried it again you'd easily make it through. A set like that might be physically "harder" than long straight swims of the same distance, but personally I find it much easier mentally. I love swimming long & straight in open water, don't mind it long course, but find it tortuous in short course.

[Katie]

I wonder if the two long swims were too close together. I have *such* a hard time figuring out the magic formula for scheduling those. After a nice long, medium-intensity swim, I usually feel great. I can't wait to try another one--either longer or harder. But if I don't take enough easy (i.e. normal distance) days in between, my performance suffers and I get hit with a week of fatigue. I'll be interested to hear if you notice any patterns like that.

[IronMike]

Evan, you'd find it even more tortuous in my pool. My 8400, after all, was 252 laps!
Katie, very possibly it might have been too close to Tuesday's workout. Although, I had a pretty tough one on Thursday with another swimmer who loves to torture me with fly sets.