Week 6 of 8: Smooth Sailing: The Crucial Art of Pacing in Swimming
In Summary (TL;DR)
This is week 6: perfect pacing
Why is it important?
How to do it?
The perfect session to improve it
Hope you didn't think I was being a bit ‘snarky’ last week about the short-turning? It's just such a simple habitual change to switch away from that would make such a difference to your swimming (if you do it, that is), that I felt I needed to shout it from the roof-tops! 🙌
So here goes for Week 6: perfect pacing
Guidance
Simple pointers for all swimmers, triathletes and their coaches
It is somewhat ironic that I have become synonymous in the coaching fraternity for my focus on the importance of pacing, given that I am habitually one of the worst pacers on the planet. Or rather, was one of the worst pacers on the planet.
Back in 1997 when I has just started my Sport & Exercise Science degree at the University of Bath in the UK, the university swim coach, Dave Lyles, suggested I have a crack at the 1,500m at the BUSA national championships. Why not? It was a couple of years after my disastrous swim in France with the pull buoy and I'd been training well.
On the day of the event, the 1,500m was to be “heat declared winner” given there was only a small contingent of students sober enough to do the event. Unlucky for me, my estimated time (18:30 or 1:14/100m) was just fast enough to make it into the fastest heat where I was to race side-by-side with Britain's best student distance freestyler at the time. He had a known personal best (P.B) time of 15:25, so theoretically in a short-course 25m pool he should have been over 3 minutes ahead, which was about 275m at his pace, meaning he'd lap me 5 times.
What do you think happened next?
Yep, I went off - all guns blazing - and swam the first 100m in 1:02, just half a second behind the best of British! I went through 200m in a new P.B of 2:10 and then the elephant jumped on my back! What then followed was an agonising 1,300m watching the fastest swimmer in the UK lap me 7 times before I finished in just under 19 minutes!
It was terrible, and Coach Dave told me so! He did mention though a young Australian swimmer by the name of Grant Hackett who at 17 years of age had just won the Pan Pacific Championships over 1,500m. Apparently, his pacing was so impeccable that each 100m split was within 0.5 seconds of each other.
I decided to make it my mission to be able to pace like Hackett. It was a mission that took some 16 years before I was to win the 2013 Manhattan Island Marathon Swim with a display of perfect pacing that I had never achieved before, and have struggled to repeat since.
Understanding
Deeper insight into how to improve this aspect of your swimming
Have a watch of this old chestnut from 2009 - a video on pace awareness and the importance of getting it right:
If you want to check out a little more practical application of this pacing concept, have a watch of this slightly longer video (17 minutes) on how to “gamify your swim pacing” with the Finis Tempo Trainer PRO:
🔎 The long-term effects of poor pacing:
Whilst you might think that setting off a bit quick every now and then and slowing over the course of each session is just “par for the course”, it can really damage your improvement prospects.
Physiologically speaking, if you spend the start of your session well above your target pace and the latter part well below it, whilst your average pace might not be too dissimilar to your goal pace, you'll have been tapping into training zones other than the “sweet spot” that is desirable around CSS pace.
Certainly, some key sessions can be sprints and some easier endurance sessions, but if you're on a time budget, then tapping into something that is going to give you the biggest bang for your training buck is important.
🧐 Master's-style swim programs:
This is also one of the primary reasons why short, fast Master's-style swim sessions might not be ideal if your goal is to swim better over longer distances.
Typically they feature a much greater rest:work ratio (to allow speeds to be held), but target very different physiological training parameters than you need to say swim a 3.8km swim really well.
Just because it might be a squad full of “good swimmers” doesn't mean it's necessarily right for you and your goals.
👉 All of our Swim Smooth Coaches offer training sessions designed to maximise your training time whilst targeting your CSS sweet spot(s).
Routine
Actionable advice with a practical program that works
Over the years, my absolute favourite pacing session (besides the classic Red Mist Endurance session mentioned in the video above), is the Goldilocks set.
The Goldilocks set uses the Tempo Trainer in Mode 1 set to your CSS pace per 25m. All you've got to try and do is stick with the beeper per 25m and take 1 beep rest (i.e. a 25m cycle) between each and every interval. Sounds simple? You have to try it and let us know how you get on!
Here's the set:
Warm-up:
10-15 minutes of easy swimming with a few drills to refine your technique (more on this next week)
Build set:
2, 3 or 4 x 100 as 25 easy, 25 moderate, 25 fast, 25 easy with 15 seconds rest
Main set:
2, 3 or 4 x 100 at CSS pace + 1 beep rest after each
200 at CSS pace + 1 beep rest
2, 3 or 4 x 100 at CSS pace + 1 beep rest after each
300 at CSS pace + 1 beep rest
2, 3 or 4 x 100 at CSS pace + 1 beep rest after each
400 at CSS pace
Cool down:
100 to 400 easy swim
🔎 My favourite set:
I love this set so much, that when I'm away travelling with limited time and training equipment, I've sometimes been known to do it up to 4 or even 5 times per week! Consistency, right?
Ultimate
Nothing beats direct - and truly individualised - coaching from one of our Swim Smooth Coaches
Sw-improvers:
Nothing Beats a Real Coach!
The empathetic and expert coaching service being offered to the Sw-improvers is very much what you can expect when visiting any of our Swim Smooth Coaches - consider booking a session with one today by following this link.
Rightio, let's hear from our Sw-improvers - how do you think they got on with their pacing efforts?
