As you probably know, last year I got back into swimming – swimming for myself and I’m also grateful to be swim coaching again, for the Glasgow Triathlon Club – a great wee inclusive and encouraging club in Glasgow. It’s been great to get back into both.

I’ve been making use of three pools – Bellahouston, the Gorbals and Tollcross for my swims, and I’ve been coaching at Bishopbriggs Leisuredrome and the Gorbals… and I’ll continue that into 2022.

I also did about 14 open water swims in 2021, including 2 Go Swim events, and swims in Lochan Spling, Loch Venachar, Loch Ness and Loch Lomond, oh and Abie’s Loch and a Pinkston too.

At the start of my pool sessions in June, I started off with swimming 80 lengths, or 2,000m and I built that up to between 2,500 – 3,000m each time I swam. I can use fins at Tollcross so if I use them I can squeeze in 3,000m if I cut the rest time down to as little as possible.

Here were the 2,000m sessions I started off with. https://lornpearsontrains.co.uk/2021/06/26/2000m-swim-sessions/amp/

And I’ll post the 2,500m sessions on another link soon.

Now for 2022, I wanted a new challenge for my swim training, so I looked at a book I’ve had for a long time, for inspiration – Swim Smooth – the complete coaching system for swimmers and triathletes.

It’s a great book, with good content, and at the back there are some examples sessions. I move tweaked then all so they’re around 2,500m to 2,900m and added in some time trials (500m / 750m / 1,000m / 1 mile).

My plan as of next week is to do three swims a week, on a 10 week cycle, including a week of rest (two swims that week). And I’ll plot in some holidays too, along with my goal of swimming the following events:

Loch Tay, 3,000m – 21 August
Loch Lomond, 5,000m – 3 September
Loch Morlich, 3,000m – 17 September

If we go with weeks of the year, this is what the 10 weekly plan and weeks will look like:

10 week plan

1. Tech 1 / Thresh 1 / Speed 1
2. 750m TT-CSS / Tech 2 / End 1
3. Thresh 2 / Speed 2 / 1km TT
4. Tech 3 / Thresh 3 / End 2
5. 750m TT-CSS / Speed 3 / Tech 4
6, Thresh 4 / Speed 4 / End 3
7. 1M TT / Tech 5 / Thresh 5
8. Speed 5 / Tech 6 / End 4
9. 1km TT / Speed 6 / Thresh 6
10. Rest / 2 swims – 750m CSS / 1km TT

Weeks
(1) 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 (12,13 hols) – Pool
14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23 – OW
24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33 – OW
34,35,36,37 (38,39,40 hols?)
41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51 – Pool

I’ll likely get back into open water swimming from April time once it warms up a bit.

Here’s the crux of what the sessions will look like (see below for the detail).

Warm up – 500m various

Build set – 300m various

Main set – 1,500m – 2,000m of either:
Technique / Threshold / Speed / Endurance / Time Trial

Cool down – 300m

The book has all of the detail of the sessions, but I’ve plugged them into my Garmin Workouts as follows…

Technique – x6
Threshold – x6
Speed – x6
Endurance – x8
Time trial – x4

And also added in some 50m versions for when I swim at Tollcross on Sundays.

I might as well add them into this post, so they’ll be below at the end if you’re interested.

Now that they’re workouts in my Garmin Connect, what I’ve done is scheduled them into my Garmin calendar, the workouts. So they’ll got to my Garmin Swim 2 watch and be ready to load when I swim.

That’s my swim training plan sorted for 2022, and I’ll hopefully be able to use the sessions to put some triathletes through their paces too.

Here’s the warm up, build and cool down sessions (in images):

And here’s the technique, threshold, speed and endurance sessions, in writing:

Technique Main
1: 4 x 400m
1. Fins > 6/1/6 < FC
2. B3/5/7/3
3. Fins > Broken Arrow < FC
4. FC
= 1,600m

2: 2 x 8 x 100m –
1. Fins 25LK, 25RK, 50FC,
2. 50 6/1/6, 50 FC
= 1,600m

3: 2 x 6 x 75m
1. 25 pull / 25 kick / 25 pull
2. 25 B3 / 25 B5 / 25 B-otherside
+750m steady TT B-choice
= 1,650m

4: 3 x 500m
1. Alignment – Fins 25 LK / 25 RK
2. Rotation – Fins 25 6/3/6 / 25 FC
3. Catch – Pull 10m scull 1, 10m scull 2, 30 FC
= 1,500m

5. 4 x 250m
1. Basic Stroke Rate (count)
2. BSR +5 (faster arms)
3. BSR -5 (long slow arms)
4. BSR +3 (faster)
+500m FC steady TT
= 1,500m

6. 3 x 500m
– 25 drill / 25 FC
– 50 drill / 50 FC
– 75 drill / 75 swim
– 100 drill / 100 FC
1. Fins – Shoulder tap
2. Pull – Doggy paddle
3. Fins – Broken Arrow
= 1,500m

Threshold Main
1. 16 x 100m +20s
= 1,600m

2. 100/200/300 FC strong
400m FC B-choice
300/200/100 FC pull
= 1,600m

3. 2 x CSS pace
3 x 100m
2 x 200m
1 x 300m
= 2,000m (no build set)

4. CSS pace +20s rest
3 x 100m, 1 x 200m
3 x 100m, 1 x 300m
3 x 100m, 1 x 400m
= 1,800m

5. 6 x 300m
1-2 FC
3 Pull & paddles
4-5 FC
6 Pull & paddles
= 1,800m

6. 24 x 50m
12 x 50m, sprint every 3rd
8 x 50m, sprint every 2nd
4 x 50m, sprint every 1
+500m FC strong
= 1,700m

Speed Main
10 x 100m FC B5 steady +60s
+500m FC B4/5
= 1,500m

2. 8 x 100m – 50 fast / 50 easy +10s
16 x 50m – 25 fast / 25 easy +10s
= 1,600m

3. 4 x 400m +10s
400m FC B3
400m FC B3/4
400m FC B5
400m FC B4/5
= 1,600m

4. 3 x various pyramid 500s
25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 100 / 75 / 50 / 25
50 / 100 / 200 / 100 / 50
1. DPS
2. Pull
3. Strong
= 1,500m

5. 15 x 100m
3 x 100m Base stroke rate
3 x 100m BSR +3 spm
3 x 100m BSR +6 spm
3 x 100m BSR +9 spm
3 x 100m BSR +12 spm
= 1,500m

6. 2 x
3 x 200m FC strong
4 x 50m FC fastest, +5s
= 1,600m

Endurance / Open Water Training
1. 3 x 750m = 2,250m
2. 2 x 1,000m = 2,000m
3. 1,600m = 1,600m
4. 3 x 1,000m = 3,000m
5. 2 x 1,600m = 3,200m
6. 4 x 1,000m = 4,000m
7. 6 x 750m = 4,500m
8. 3 x 1,600 = 5,400m

(I doubt I’ll get to be able to be swimming endurance sessions 6, 7 and 8, but you never know, we’ll see!).

I’m back coaching Glasgow Club triathletes at Bishopbriggs on Monday morning (very early at 615am), so I’m looking forward to that. 🏊‍♀️

And I have a swim tomorrow and Sunday to get myself warmed up and back in the pool after a wee mini break in the last week or twin