Original

Really interesting swim session this morning, in fact I would say it is the first time I have done a swim session like it. Whilst I am no life time swimmer, I have swum for about 10 years of my life, and so to do a completely original session is quite a thrill.

The idea of the session was remarkably simple, just 100s, heaps of them. The unique bit of the session is that there was no set number of 100s and no prescribed pace. Instead the idea of the session was to do as many 100s as you could in 40 minutes, taking 15 seconds rest in between. For pace we had to start off very easy and then bring our times down by 1 second per 100 until we couldn't any more. Once we hit a plateau we then needed to try and hold that pace to the end. Simple doesn't mean easy.

I have to say the session was a lot of fun.

My group ended up doing 23 x 100m. I have done the standard 20 x 100m session heaps of times and while on paper the two sessions sessions seem quite similar, they felt very different. When I do 20 x 100 I usually breeze through the first 5, lose focus a bit in the next 5, wonder if they will ever end in the next 5 and then enjoy the downhill run in the last 5. I was expecting to go through a similar cycle for the session today as I knew we would end up doing around 20, but it never really occurred that way. Instead, because we were trying to push each one we stayed engaged all the way through. Similarly because we were trying to push and consistently hold our best pace the entire way, we never really got bored or lost focus. Holding our best sustainable pace did make for a tough session, but that is okay because that is why we go after all.

It just goes to show that no matter how experienced you are and how much training you have done, with a bit of ingenuity there is always a way to make training challenging, engaging and fun. Good lesson for a coach to learn.