8 weeks in

8 weeks into the endurance part of the year and here is the progress:

Today I practised a 5km race pace. The time was spot on where it should be...it was faster than what I used to swim 5km with flippers on earlier this year!

Rest week is coming up - definitely not my favourite week of the month. 

Week 6...tick

Week two of the second month is completed. There was lots of medium length speed work and lots of 1km sets.

Some of the 1km sets were at race pace speed. About three months ago that was 18:30 it's now mid 17s. At that pace it feels like I could go for hours.

So into week 4, same as the last two...6 sessions totally a min of 27.5km.

Food for thought...

As i mentioned before I have been experimenting with different types of foods whilst swimming. After trying out a few naturally low GI foods I have settled on one of the lowest, Potato. After blending it up and adding water potato is rocket fuel and best of all it does not hurt or bloat my stomach like gels or most other foods.

Here is my formula:

• I weigh 90kg so if the books are right i require ~90g of carbs per hour whilst swimming.
• A medium potato contains 30 grams of carbs
• One medium potato equals 160ml after pureeing
• I add 140ml of water to make it runny and a pinch of salt and ginger
• It takes 10-15 sec to put it down, no chewing required
• Each bottle is 20min or 1km worth of energy

I have been practising with it for a few weeks now and it's working well. I will also trial other foods as backup or as treats. Next it's onto the liquid requirements. I already have 140mls from the potato drink so I doubt if it would be much more than that.

Week 5 completed

I managed to get this weeks 27.5km done even though I was away for work Mon to Fri.

This week should b easier!

work is getting in the way

A week of work in Melbourne is getting in the way of this weeks training. Its Thursday and I have only done 11km...its going to be a long weekend.

Month 2 - Build and tempo

Here we go 3 weeks of building...90km of tempo and endurance sets. This months goal is to slightly improve the times but its main focus is on tempo i.e swim constant speeds over the entire sets... eliminating the peaks and troughs.

Yesterday was another pb over 500m - 7min 59 sec. A build set: 150 easy, 300 mod and 50 hard.