Swimming Stupid

I've been trading workouts with my buddy Andy for the past couple of weeks.  So far, it's been mostly one-way.  Last night marked the first time I took one of Andy's workouts and did it myself.

We are both competitive guys.  We've been friends for a long time, were teammates at the Academy, and in fact, Andy was the captain of the Army team when we were firsties.  So we go back a ways.  What I've learned--the hard way--is that when you're competitive with your friends, you still need to swim your own races.  In fact, that's definitely the time to stay strictly in your own head and do your own thing.

I didn't do that last night, and I'm paying for it today.

Andy's Workout
500 warm up
10 x 10 drill @ :50

Main Set
400 @ 6:00
2 x 200 @ 3:00
 -- 1:00 rest
300 @ 4:30
2 x 150 @ 2:15
 -- 1:100 rest
200 @ 3:00
2 x 100 @ 1:30
 -- 1:00 rest
100 @ 1:30
2 x 50 @ :45

200 warm down

Total: 3200

No problem, right?  Except that he sent me a note at the end saying that he'd tried to hold 1:15/100 and been mostly successful, save for the first 400, where he went 5:10.  So I thought, Shit.  I can do better than that.

Wrong.

I switched this up a bit, doing 3 x 200 warm-up on no particular interval and scrubbing the 10 x 50 @ :50.  I then hit the first 400 incredibly hard, putting down 5:03.  About 3/4 of the way through that, though, I realized that Andy had started off at an aggressive aerobic pace and accelerated into the rest of the set, and that this was obviously the way to do it.

My first 400 was excellent, but after that, I was smoked.  My next 2 x 200 were both closer to 2:35, and although I put the 300 down right at 3:45 with a minute's rest, the following 150s were pure shit.  From there, the workout became an exercise in pain management which I'm very much still feeling today despite a nice dinner and seven hours of decent sleep.  Getting on the bike this morning was a definite chore, and I only had to ride 3/4 mile to get to the train station.  There's no telling what the hills are gonna feel like in Central Park.

Oof.  This is not the way we swim smart.

Have a nice day, folks.

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