Progress

I finally got one right. The 'one' I refer to is the timetrails we do periodically as part of training with Swim Smooth. We had the time trail this morning and it went well.

The timetrials we do are all part of establishing our CSS pace for training. To quote directly from the Swim Smooth website, CSS is:

CSS is an acronym for Critical Swim Speed. It's an approximation of your lactate threshold speed and you can find it by doing a couple of swimming tests (no blood involved - just a stopwatch!). It's not precisely the same as lactate threshold but it will be within a couple of seconds per 100m, which is plenty accurate enough to guide your training.

Theoretically CSS is the pace per 100m that you could hold for 1500m if you were fresh. In training we use it as a base for pretty much everything we do. For example if we were doing a set of 200s, we might do them on a turn around of CSS + 6 seconds. It gives you a starting place for making sure you are pacing your training correctly.

Again quoting from the Swim Smooth website, we calculate CSS by doing this:

The CSS test involves two timetrial swims - a 400m and a 200m. Before attempting these swims perform a thorough warmup and a small build set to get you used to swimming fast.

Do the 400m timetrial first, it's less likely to effect the 200m than the other way around. Recover completely between each timetrial with some easy swimming. Perform both timetrials from a push off from the wall, not a dive. Try and pace the trials as evenly as possible, don't start too fast and slow down.

Doing both a 400 and 200 should, theoretically, account for any fade you might suffer over longer distances. For this reason, if you do a fast 400 and a slow 200 you will end up with a faster CSS than if you had done a slow 400 and a fast 200. The CSS calculation assumes you faded over the 400m. It seems to work reasonably well. In the end if it isn't entirely accurate isn't all that important. What is actually more important is that it is highly repeatable, allowing us to compare from one timetrial to another and track improvements.

Anyway, I have never really managed to nail one of these time trials before. The previous one I paced the 400m badly and so ended up with an inaccurate CSS. This is the first one that I have been really happy with. With the morning's swim my CSS has dropped by about 4 seconds from when I first started with Swim Smooth not quite 18 months ago. That doesn't sound like much, but it is about 1 minute 20 over an Half Ironman. That is definitely enough to win or lose a race.So that is four seconds I will take.

Last night I had my longest walk/run session so far. Two hours, which was good for about 22km. Whilst I was still walk/running, it was good to do a proper long session. I felt okay by the end. Tired, and I felt fairly worn out this morning, but not too sore, which is the important thing.

Bike session in the morning, a bit of a shorter one, but quite intense. Should be fun.