billratio
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Actually all 4 of our 200s were a little off pace. One more than the others. I think I just have to adjust some things next year. If you go with multiplying the pace 50 time by 4 then we all were faster than pace. If you say they should hit that pace on their last 3 50s with a first 50 being a bit faster (1.5 faster?) then they all missed pace.
So maybe I’ll just expect something in the middle and adjust the pace. Still have tons of learning to do.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Of course, this is my first full season of USRPT so I can’t say for sure we wouldn’t have done better if we had stuck with 10-20 seconds rest. But it’s hard to complain when every race we had (except one 500 and one 200) was pretty much right at the practice race pace or faster.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
drpaul, yes those 25s @1:00 were for 100 pace. Everyone actually swam about .25 to .5 faster than the normal 100 pace they trained for though. We did them almost every day for the last month of the season but they also had 100 pace 25s on faster intervals.
I will say that I found very few of my swimmers were able to hold pace for a significant number with only 10-15 seconds rest. Actually even 20 seconds rest was very hard for them. My distance swimmers could hold pace with only 15-18 seconds rest but the 25s were hard for my girls. It could have to do with the fact that we’re just not a super elite group. I think Rushall is okay with 25 seconds rest if needed.
I posted on here earlier in the season about my frustrating with my flyers and breaststrokers not being able to do their 25s at pace. Oldschool said they move those swimmers up to :40 or :50 or even 1:00. Pace is more important than getting the exact amount of rest.
Every flyer and breaststroker we had did their primary sets on :50 (except our 1:02.4 flyer does them on :40). The results were the same at sections for all of them. I even had 2 backstrokers who went on :50 and their results were a little better than my girls who were doing them on :40.
My freestylers did most of their sets on :40 and all hit their pace except the girl who went 55.3 and was training for 55.0.
It’s a small sample size but I think it is enough to suggest hitting your pace is much more important than getting the recommended 10-20 seconds rest.
I heard Dave Salo say that after college he trained for 3 months(i think that was the length) doing 60×25 @1:00 every day. He got best times in everything at his meet.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Rick, it is a wonderful feeling indeed. I know there were a lot of people who were probably skeptical but I was fortunate to not have any parents who questioned what we were doing. It took a lot of trust on the part of the swimmers as well. One parent came up to me after Finals and said “They’re all believers now.”
I’m in MN. I know of two other coaches in the state who do this and I’m sure there are more. Though one of them hasn’t given up the kicking yet. Tangent: Dropping all those long kick sets I used to do has made it so much easier to get things done with my team. Oh, all the hours I wasted…
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
There was a typing error on the 100 flyer splits. It was 29.2 and 33.2.
During the season her tempo definitely slowed at the end of her 50. I didn’t notice anything like that yesterday though. It was more of just taking an extra stroke at the end when she was 2 inches from the wall with her other hand.
We started doing 25s @1:00 trying o hold under 13. It got tough after 3. She was holding 13.0 when we moved to 1:30 with a random 12.6 and 12.7 in there. It might have been a slight stopwatch error by me but I thought it don’t think so. Not sure what would cause to of them to be so much better.
Not sure how good 13.0 is when she goes 13.5 doing 100 pace @1:00.
I know in prelims I had her timed at 12.15 to her feet (25.45 was her time). So coming back in 13.0 would be okay I guess. I didn’t get the 25 split at finals but she looked a lot faster.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Crazy fast means faster than I expected for her. 🙂 We did sprint 25s @2:00 a few times a week with her but mostly focused on the 100 free and 100 back and she was training for a lot of other events early in the year. She got 26.40 leading off the relay which is .11 away from the MN club state time for her age group. She had never even gotten an A time before this year! She also busted out a 25.57 at finals when she was second on the relay.
I was intentionally leaving out our sprinter’s time because I was hoping to just post it after state. She went 25.19 which was a best time but we really wanted (and I thought was possible) her to be well into the 24s. She was leading narrowly and had the worst finish she’s ever had (sounds like an excuse but it had to cost her a bit). I said to the swimmers next to me “What did she do on that finish?” Everyone agreed was bad. The first thing she said when she got back was I don’t know what happened on the finish. The girl I thought she was beating went 24.95.
Which brings up a question. We have 4 days to practice until state. She missed going in the 100 so we don’t have to train for that anymore. Is there anything we can do in that amount of time to get a tenth or so cut off? I don’t want to tire her out but I was thinking 2 rounds of 12×12.5s and one round of 12×25 @2:00 from the blocks and then cut down each day. Too much or too little? We’re having a tough time figuring out the right balance between getting her tempo really going and catching as much water as possible.
If a girl can go 11.9 in practice without a tech suit from the blocks, what would you expect for a 50? I know it depends a lot on the swimmer and the turn but do you have a general idea? I know when I was swimming I was always faster to my feet in a meet than I was to a hand touch 25 in practice. Not sure if girls would be different though. Even just out in 11.8 and back in 12.8 would be amazing.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Swimmer E – 15yrs old (with tech suit). 500 free(LTB of 5:31.?, went 5:40.4 and 5:42 this year) and 200 free(LTB of 2:08.22, went 2:09.7 and 2:11.2 this year). We wouldn’t allow anything over 32.7 for 500 pace 50s @:50. Meaning most of them were 32.5-32.7. She was very concerned about yardage going into the year (she was the only swimmer I had done this with when I tried it in spring in club. It was only 8 weeks and she came in after a break so it didn’t go well.) We just made it our goal to get 2,000-3,000 yards at her pace every M/W/F. There wasn’t a day that she didn’t hit at least 2,000 yards at 500 pace. Did 50s @1:00 holding 31.9 or faster for 200 pace on Tues/Thurs. These were all splits she didn’t move to until a month and a half into the season.
500 Splits
29.5? (missed the first split because I was running to talk to the counter)
32.54
33.08
33.59
33.50
33.50
33.56
33.50
33.55
31.6 or 31.8? (Didn’t remember to write it down. She was barely off what she had gone in prelims on all the splits and had only made the state cut by .2 in that race. I was running along the side of the pool screaming at her. The last 50 made up for it and she was a half second faster than in prelims)
Time of 5:28.54 (State cut of 5:29.27 was the gaol)I’ve seen her swim 500s year round for 3 years and she has never had a race with splits anything near that consistent. Prelims they all ranged from 33.40 to 33.61 but it was still swam really well. I think I have a better idea of what our distance swimmers will need to train at to get their goal times now. In the future I plan on doing a lot more 100s and 75s with them as well.
200 Free splits – 29.46, 32.06, 32.70, 31.83 for 2:06.05. I felt like she could have been faster because she had been going 31.lows on her 200 sets the last 3 weeks of the year. Both prelims and finals had a slow 3rd 50.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Swimmer B’s other event was 200 IM and she cut 6 seconds this year. 3 seconds at this meet from her lifetime best. (2:26.5 coming into the year, 2:23.5 mid year, 2:20.7 Sections). I thought we could be 2:19 but still a good time. Trained for 36.5 back went (36.8 in prelims and 36.0 in finals), trained 25s in breast going 19.0 w/50s going 42.0 (went 42.5 in prelims and 43.1 in finals), Free she held 31.0 in practice (went 31.6 in prelims and 32.1 in finals), didn’t do any specific fly training and went out in 29.4 both races. Finals was a 2:20.8.
Swimmer C(with tech suit) -17yrs old. 100 Back – lifetime best before season (1:07.6), top 3 season times (1:07.12, 1:07.5, 1:07.5) This was a very interesting one. I fear revealing some of this data will make me sound like a horrible USRPT coach but here goes. She wanted to go 1:04 and I thought that was realistic because she had never really trained backstroke before. We wanted to go 16.0 @:30 for a while but she didn’t progress at all. We switched her to @:40 and things got a little better but not much. One set we recorded had her go 8 straight with the slowest at 16.2 and the fastest going 15.7, sat out two then hit 4 more. Most successful she was all year @:40. If she got 12 before her 3rd fail it was a great set for her. Often she’d be hitting her first failure on the 4th one. With 2 weeks left she was really psyching herself out about the sets on the :40 because everyone else on our team was going so much further than her. I switched her to a lane with 100 breaststrokers @:50 and occasionally @1:00 for the rest of the year. She was able to hold 15.5 consistently and the numbers improved to 12ish before the first failure and also seemed to be able to go forever @1:00 (We did 12 or 16×25 @1:00 at the end of many practices for everyone just so they could hit their pace for everything. Not sure they can get a training effect without failure but I do think it helped their confidence).
She went 31.3, 33.3 for 1:04.6 in prelims and then 30.85, 33.00 for 1:03.85 in finals. I expected a 1:04 mid to high but the 1:03 really surprised me. We have a slow backstroke section so she took second and made state. First place was 1:03.83.
This girl was .7 off her lifetime best IM time which was from when she was 15 years old. Splits correlated about the same as Swimmer B. Went from a 2:31.8 to a 2:24.8 with the rest and suit.
Swimmer D – 14yrs old(with tech suit) 100 free – Lifetime best before season(1:02.??), top 3 season times (59.48, 59.7, 59.8) and 100 back Lifetime best before season (1:17) – top 2 season times (1:10.11, 1:16.8?)
Trained 14.5-14.75 for the 100 free. There were days I thought I’d be happy if she broke 59 and days I thought she could go sub 58. Recorded her going under 14.75 for 16 straight @:40 one time. Did her 25s @:40 for both races. Back was supposed to hold under 17.5 just so we could break 1:10. Completed high numbers for the free and the back was a little tougher.
Went 27.2, 30.2 for a 57.4! And went 32.2, 36.0 for a 1:08.2. She could have split those a bit better but great times for her. Also went crazy fast on the 50 free. I attribute some of her success to it just being the year she was going to improve no matter what.
I could go through every 100 swimmer but I’ll move on to the 200 and 500 girls. Every 100 was done at pace or faster except for our girl with pneumonia. It was a really sad deal because it’s her senior year and she hadn’t dropped time in 2 years and was on track to crush her old best 100 breast time. Wound up swimming 1.5 seconds off it.
I need to work on recording better because each practice I usually only know what a couple people did 100% for sure. I just time them to make sure they are holding pace but you never know for sure what they are doing. So for most of these girls I’ve timed them a lot on random 25s and asked “What are you holding?” If they are pretty accurate to what I’m getting then I assume they are doing the sets correctly. During the last 2 weeks we had extra timers on deck to help out though.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Now that I think about it the turns for the 100 and the 200 would be the same. I don’t know what I was thinking. I still don’t know why 25s wouldn’t translate to 100 pace as well as 50s to 200 pace.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Rick, how are the 25s correlating to 100 pace? I just read something from Rushall saying that Michael Andrew expects to be 1 second slower than the pace he is hitting on 25s. So if he is going 10.0 on 25s he expects to swim a 41.0. I don’t understand why that would be fore the 100s. If anything it should be less because there are less turns in a 100. But Rushall also said that the time you hit for pace 200s should translate pretty much right to your 200 time. Others here have said it translates more closely to the last 3 50s instead.
Sections is today so there isn’t anything I can do about it now but I have some swimmers who will be very disappointed if this is true. 1 second is a huge number in a 100.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Congrats on your best times! Would you mind sharing how many training sessions you have per week and how many yards you are achieving per session? What sets did you use to train for the 200?
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Thanks for all the info. I’d like to know next time you are near MN doing a talk.
So I’m guessing you have 2 practices some days to be able to offer 15,000 a week. Is that right?
What do you do when you are resting for a meet with those swimmers who are completing only 30%. Do you offer numbers that will make sure they drop their yardage or do you just cut a % of what you’ve been offering? I’m not sure I’m making that clear but I don’t know how to ask it.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
What do you mean if it’s made 60% RP things will get interesting? You think it would be possible to swim too much yards at pace?
You have some swimmers who are there consistently but still only complete around 30%. How do those swimmers generally perform?
If a swimmer made 50% of all the yards you offer, how many race pace yards would that be in a typical week?
Are you ever going to start doing clinics on this stuff? 🙂 I feel like you have more to offer than the Andrews considering how many more athletes you’ve trained this way (not to say I don’t appreciate what they’ve done).
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Thanks for the response. I guess I was just hoping that the rest would have helped a higher number improve but you are correct. As I reflect on it I’m not as worried about Sections.
It’s not mean. You are right. 🙂 I’m no better than a TT coach in that way. I only have snapshot numbers of where they were in their training at certain points in the season. She came in out of shape and was struggling to hold 14.5 for 16×25. We got her pace down to 13.75 7 weeks ago because she’s training to break 55. She’s built her numbers up to 20+ 25s on a good set now. Holding 13.5-13.7.
I will be recording every number next season though. And the rest of this season.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
We didn’t do as well as I was hoping at the meet but we didn’t do horrible. I know some of them just didn’t swim as hard as they could have. Every girl who was competing for Section spots was able to drop time. The other girls probably just needed more motivation.
We were 26/38 for best times. So 68%. Most of the races that weren’t best times are easily explainable or just not surprising to me. Overall for the year we improved in everything except for 2 girls each having one event and two events that they didn’t drop time in this year.
We only had a 4 day taper (Monday-Thursday). I’m wondering if it wasn’t enough rest or if the girls just aren’t swimming their paces in practice. I haven’t been good with this group keeping track of their times. I know 3 of them were holding between 16-16.5 on 25s and they wound up going 1:05.4-1:05.8. So they were able to hit the times they were training for.
I’ll have much better data with my section girls.
I know I keep asking about rest but with Sections coming up in 2 weeks I’m starting to freak out a bit. I only get one shot at getting this right or I know I won’t be allowed to run USRPT next year. The head coach seems to be doubting it now. Most of my girls have been completing 2,000-3,300 yards at race pace per day. How much should they be swimming per day in the final week?
I have a girl holding her pace for 60+ 25s a day at her 100 free pace. She is working so hard. 1500 yards that fast on top of her 50 free training makes me wonder if she’ll need more rest than 4 days. When in doubt error on the side of rest, right? I just don’t want her to lose what she has built up.
Yesterday she completed 26 straight 25s and then missed by a 10th of a second. She said she could have done more so we did it again and she went 24 straight. We had to get out early for JV conference so we didn’t do any more after that. Am I making her do too much?
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
