Nailing your pacing

Hi Guys, ive done some absolutely fascinating sessions with some of my squads over the past few weeks and what ive written below is applicable to you all. Although the distances might be slightly different to what you have done ive used my Tuesday Park Club Going Long squad (90mins) and my Friday British Gas squads (60mins) as an excellent example. This is definitely an email everyone should read, you should also attempt the session yourself because it a great way to see how well you pace your swimming….you might be very surprised at the results as many people have been ! Ive attached both files for you to see.

The main pacing set for British Gas was structured as follows (TPC longer sets of 100,200,400,800):

– 100/200/300/400 all on 30 seconds  rest interval / all at a comfortable aerobic even pace

– 90 secs rest interval (only move to the next set if your pacing was good, if not repeat first set again)

– 100/200/300/400 all on 45 seconds  rest interval / all at 1500m even  race pace

So the session was a test of how well you pace your swimming, quite simply all you had to do was maintain the same very comfortable aerobic pace for each set but we just added 100m to the distance each time. So for example if you swam your first 100m at 2 min pace, the idea was to do 4mins for the 200m, 6mins for 300m and finally 8 mins for the 400m. Sounds easy right ?

For some of you that actually did quite well on this first set i then allowed you to progress to the same set again but done at what you perceive your 1500m race pace to be. For those that did badly i asked you to repeat the test again to see if you could improve what you did on the first set, some of you did much better second time round so it just goes to show that when you practice something ..you get better at it.

Within this i gave you each + or – 3 secs variable as your pacing buffer, stay within this zone and this is a sign of good pacing. The closer you are to zero the better your pacing, the further you are away on the plus or minus side the more you need to work on your pace control  .  So if your first target was to hit 2 mins and you did 1.57 …you achieved the pacing target. When elite athletes do this kind of session they actually expect to hit the same time each time even when doubling the distances or more. This is how in tune they are with how they pace their swims. How do they do this ? It takes many years of practice but the number one difference is that they constantly time the sets they do …particularly if they are doing a main set. They are so in tune with their efforts they would know if they are half a second out or even less in some cases over a range of distances. Quite simply if you never time yourself in the pool, you will have absolutely no idea of how to pace yourself or how each level of intensity feels.

This is a hugely important part of swimming to master because if you can learn to control your pace you will get more quality out of your training sessions and without question you will be able to race at a much higher level.

So whats did the tests show:

1 – Most of you are swimming way to fast when you think you are swimming comfortably  or “aerobically”.

2 – Most of you are swimming way too fast when you are even warming up in the pool.

3 – Most of you are struggling to feel the difference between “comfortable” pace and “race pace” because you dont time yourself in the water.

What was even more fascinating to see was that you should all be able to swim at an easy pace over a long distance with ease, but based on the first 100m time some of you had to go so fast  by the time you got to the 400m you actually had to swim a personal best over this distance to achieve the same pace as the 100m!

It is also important to mention that the reason a warm up is called a warm up is because it should be done at  very slow relaxed pace because you are preparing to go faster later in the session. I see some of you puffing and panting each week after the warm up  then really struggling by the time you get to the main set. If you are starting at the correct pace then it should make it more comfortable for you to ease yourself into the harder later sets. Have you ever watched an elite pro warm up ?….they almost look like they are swimming in slow motion with very little effort at all, this is exactly how a warm up should look. Theres definitely no prizes for exceeding your pace limit in the warm up.

The other problem with warming up too quickly is that the body finds it extremely uncomfortable, this can lead to exercise induced headaches and poor technique. The sooner you can lock into good technique in the early part of the session the easier it will be for you to hold better technique when you are pushing harder later in the session.

There is also another factor at play here, that is what i call the “squad affect”. When swimming with others most people will start to push on harder than they need to, obviously this can have a positive and negative affect. The positive being that you come out of your comfort zone in this environment leading to improved speed and  fitness. The negative being that some times you will be training at the wrong intensity for your current level of fitness so you are not developing your fitness correctly. The key factor is  finding a balance between the two, theres no point training at someone else’s aerobic pace when this might actually be race pace for you. If you can learn to swim the easier sets at your easy pace and the faster sets at your fast pace then this will add much more value to your swim sessions for sure.

So why is pacing so important?

The reason pacing is so important is because most people swim way too fast in the first quarter of a race than they need to, this has a dramatic affect in the second half or final quarter of the race because they will actually start to slow down. This will have a big impact on your overall time for that distance, essentially you will never achieve your best time if you start too fast. On the other hand if you are smart and  in tune with your pacing  this can lead to improved race performances and faster times. It will also help those of you that are training for triathlons because it will have a big impact on how well you bike and run after the swim. The longer you go the more important it is for you to hold back in the swim.

Interestingly I watched an interview with top Olympic swim coach David Calleja recently, he was asked for the number one piece of advice he would give to distance swimmers. Yes youve guessed it he couldnt stress enough the importance of learning how to pace properly. He said that most swimmers swim way too fast in the early part of a race and then slow down in the second half. He also stated the importance of learning how to even pace your swim sets and be able to do negative splits ( get faster in the second half of a given distance). It might also surprise you to hear that they examined all of the swimming gold medal winning performances over the past 5 Olympic games – 95% of them were set with a negative split swim.

So my top tips for improving your swim pacing are:

1 – Dont bury your head in the sand and ignore it ! The sooner you address it the better you will get, it might take a few sessions but you will e amazed at the improvements you can make.

2 – Dont be a technophobe! Get yourself a watch with a stopwatch/lap counter….all you have to learn how to do is press “start” , “Stop” , “Reset” …it really is that simple. Or just learn how to use the pace clock at your pool.

3 – Practice doing even paced sets at different intensities so you get an idea of what is slow, comfortable, moderate, strong, sprint pace.

4 – Practice doing negative split training to see if you can actually get quicker, if you cant then you are swimming too fast at the beginning so slow down.

5 – Swim at your own intensity not someone elses, but every now again test yourself by using other faster swimmers to push you harder.