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My workouts are about 2500 yards. I realize that some people want to swim longer and some shorter distance. The justification is that 2500 yards is a good fit for the Olympic distance and the half-iron distance triathletes. Most folks training for full ironman distance seem to have their own training plan, as they should, and the sprint distance folks can easily shorten any of my work outs to fit their needs. This is the time of year we should be thinking about base training (see my blog post). Unless you are going to a destination race the triathlon season will not start again until April-May 2010. This gives us time for REST. (Yep, doing nothing is important.) It gives us time to slow down and work on technique, cardiovascular endurance, and strength. Now, by strength I don't generally mean how much can you bench press. However, it is a good time to strengthen up the muscle groups that will be important in you swim-bike-run. (We can talk about specific weight training routines later.) And, it is a great time to strengthen up that "core," so stuff like pilates style exercises and yoga are great. (Again, I'll get to that more specifically.) You might even think about plyometrics, although I would tend to reserve that for when more speed training is coming into play. So, here is a good workout. There are a few definitions I'll throw your way for now, but as we get into it I'll assume you know what I mean:

Warm up: 200 yard freestyle, 2 x 200 [50 freestyle, 100 kick with kickboard, 50 freestyle (:20 sec rest interval between your first and second 50-100-50).

Main set: 300, 200, 100 yards freestyle, moderate intensity (:20 seconds rest interval between sets)

200, 100, 50 yards freestyle, negative split (means that the first half of the designated swim is slower than the second half, so the first 100 of the 200, first 50 of the 100, etc.) (:25 second rest interval between sets)

200 yards fast (:30 sec RI)

100 yards fast (:30 sec RI)

6 x 100 pull - means with paddles and pull buoy (:25 sec RI)

Cool down: 100 yards - anything you want.

Total distance 2550 Estimated time to completion: 60-75 minutes

Folks, your gonna see kicking drills in these workouts. If you think, "hey, why kick? I need to save my legs in a triathlon." There are several reasons why this is not a good line of thinking. Kicking builds strength in the legs and core muscles, and speed, gives stability, buoyancy. And, not all triathlons are wetsuit legal. I've posted a great kicking video by Dave Scott on our www.go-omc.com website. The one by Jimmy D. Shea also has lots of information packed into just a few minutes. So, without further delay, hope to see some of you on Friday. I'm kind of a 6:00 am guy, but I know some of you will be there closer to 5:30 am. In either case, have a great work out.