With various work commitments etc it has been a couple of weeks since I was last down at SwimSmooth so the session today was a very welcome return, not just for the coaching, but it was also a great chance to catch up with everyone in the squad. Loads of fun.
The session this morning was like so many other SwimSmooth sessions, it seemed innocent enough on paper, but the reality was very different.
The session today looked innocuous because there was nothing over 100m in the main set. Should be easy right?
The twist to the session came with the amount of rest. The session this morning was a classic pyramid, start off with loads of rest, then progressively descend to a point where you get very little rest before ascending again back up to loads of rest. While the 100s started off with a very generous 15 seconds rest, they quickly descended to the point where most people were lucky to get 2 or 3 seconds rest before ascending back to 15 seconds. Tough stuff.
The short rest stuff was hard for obvious reasons. However, interestingly with these sets, once the rest starts to increase the efforts typically don't get any easier. The reason for this is that is that as the rest gets longer, people can start swimming quicker. So rather than simply hanging on like they were doing when the short rest efforts, with the longer rest efforts they are actually able to apply effort and push. There may be more rest, but the efforts don't feel any easier. That was certainly the case again today.
Still, for the guys who pushed through and completed the set, they have put another great quality brick in the wall of fitness that they are building. It is a set that will help them keep pushing when the going gets tough in their next race, and in the end that is kind of the point.
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