This is a little different workout than I normally swim. I gave myself a lot of time on the sprint 50s and 25s, but the 75s preceding them are meant to be hard. Whatever interval you come in on that first 75 is the pace you aim to keep through the rest of those 75s. Realize that, if you come in on a 1:05, you’ll only get :05 rest. The idea is to maintain your speed on those 75s and see what you can do when you turn around to sprint that first 50/25 for the next round. With the amount of rest you are getting, the succeeding 50s/25s won’t hurt . . . as much. LOL That first sprint 50 is supposed to hurt. The first round of 75s, I was maintaining 1:01-1:03. However, all of the others were :59-1:01. I wasn’t sprinting, but I was pushing them. Every 50 was sub :40. This is good for me.
Whatever your base 100 interval for your main set is what you set the 75 intervals for. My base is 1:30. I supposed I could have done the 75s on 1:05, but that would be quicker than a 1:30, and, honestly, I need those 2.5 seconds extra rest. LOL If your base 100 interval is 1:20, then your 75 interval would be 1:00. If it’s 1:40, it’d be 1:15. If it’s 1:35, I’d go with the 1:15. You want this to be hard. It’s not meant to be an easy set. You get a lot of rest on the sprints, but it’s still going to be tough. You should start to feel it–really feel it–as the sets progress. Also, if your intervals are much faster than what I’ve set out (even 1:00/75), that means you should have time to just repeat Set 1 in the main set instead of doing set 2. I would have if I’d had the time to do it.
Adjust these intervals to fit your speed and fitness level, whether it’s faster or slower, it’s important that they work for you.
55-minute swim workout, sprint day
500 warmup (~7:30 min)
Warmup set 2x (600 yds, 11:20 min)
100 on 1:40
4 x 50 on 1:00 descend
50 easy
Main set (1600 yds, 33:35 min)
Set 1 (950 yds, 19 min)
4 x 75 on 1:10
4 x 50 sprint on 1:15
4 x 75 on 1:10
4 x 25 sprint on :40
Easy 50 on 1:00
Set 2 (650 yds, 14:35 min)
2 x 75 on 1:10
4 x 50 sprint on 1:15
2 x 75 on 1:10
4 x 25 sprint on :40
Easy 50 on 1:00
100 warm down
Total yards: 2850
