I just joined this tribe because I am training for a 10mile relay at Lake Tahoe and am interested distance training.

soooooo anybody got any ideas?

I oersonally have never heard of "russians" before but that doesn't mena much.

I know that Igor Koshkin presented in 1985 a system for Vladimir Salinkov's development that was considered the Soviet Distance training Textbook at the time.

The base (Test) sets for that training

entry meso cycle
4x50 m pull and kick fly and back
4x50 m pull and kick breast and free
4x50 m full stroke
200 m im with 3 pulse checks
3000 m free with 3 pulse and lactic acid checks

start meso cycle
8x 300 free (20 sec rest)
4x600 free (20 sec rest)
Pulse and lactic acid test throughout

attack meso cycle
4x600 free (20 sec rest)
4x300 free (20 sec rest)
4 x 150 free (20 sec rest)
pulse and lactic acid test throughout

Pre comp meso
12x 50 (3-5 sec rest)
pulse and lactic acid test throughout

I assume these sets gave them more of a base of perfusion performance rather than speed definition, something very common in what I know of distance training. rather than focus on the speed of a set, performance is measured in things like levels of fatique, aerobic recovery and sheer consistancy.

The 200 sets you mentioned are probably more for training sprinters at pace where you learn to conserve energy for 60 to 80 % of a race and then pour into the final 40-20%. 1560 and thousand yard swimmers sometimes train this way so they can control their splits but quite often stroke counting can be just as effective in controling the speed and energy management of a distance swimmer.

Open water can be a whole nother monster . I try to dig out some clearer stuff for that in a few days.

hope it helps.
oxoxo
fko

hey will

yeah man i would establish a bass time for 200s by adding @ 35 seconds to how fast u could race a 200 right now

play around with the intervals!

its your workout, and you know what pain and endurance feels like

as far as repititions go, i wouldnt exceed 15 200s

feel free to spice it up with sum kicking in between too!

go easy on your precious shoulders

the stroke patterns u are about to set will determine the efficiency of the foundation u are building

peace

The 35 second rule of thumb sounds pretty good. I think your base is supposed to be your aerobic swim pace - I think this is determined based on your heart rate and I think it is supposed to be the sustainable pace at 10 x the distance.

So it seems you could do a 2000 yard swim at a moderately fast pace, not race pace, timed. Divide that by 10 and that would be your base time. This means you should be able to do at least 10 at that pace. I've usually dropped the pace by 5 seconds when it is fairly easy to do 10 at the base time. That doesn't seem too difficult and I would imagine oly trainers would do something more like a 200 at a moderately fast pace and use that as the base time, then see how many repeats you can do.

Here's what I've read:

"For example, let us say you are training for a Sprint Distance Triathlon. The swim portion of the race usually covers a distance of approximately ¼ to ½ mile. In yards, this transfers to about 500-800 yards. Therefore, your training or test swim should cover at least 500 yards. The key is to swim this distance relaxed. Not slow, not fast, but at a nice pace with which you feel comfortable. And you want to time this swim. After a good warm-up, begin the swim. At the end of the swim, record your total time. Then divide that total time by 10 (a 500 yd swim is made up of 10 x 50’s) and the result will be your 50 yd pace. Therefore, if you swam your 500 freestyle in 7 minutes and 30 seconds, your aerobic 50 yd swim pace would be .45 seconds (7.5 minutes divided by 10). And once, every three weeks you want to perform this test to assess your improvement.

Once you have determined your aerobic pace, you then have a base-time to use during your swim training and specific swim sets. However, your goal is to improve this aerobic pace. Therefore, challenge yourself! From the results above, If you are given a set of 10 x 50’s freestyle on an interval of one minute, you should be able to hold a pace of 45 seconds per 50 with relative ease. This would also allow you 15 seconds rest between each swim. However, we want to make this a challenge so try and hold 42 seconds for each 50 yd. freestyle you perform. You will be surprised how easy it is to swim just three seconds faster per 50. And you will be even more delighted when you realized you’ve just improved your overall 500 yd. swim time by 15 seconds! Finally, during these specific aerobic swim sets, take note of your heart rate. Your goal is to try and keep your heart rate within it’s aerobic range during these type of sets."

It sounds similar to a T-30 structure. A swimmer would swim 30 mins as hard as possible and time it. Then, using that time and referencing it in a table, the swimmer could then work out the correct interval and speed to do repeats (ie, 200m, leaving every 3:15, doing it at 2:58 pace per 200m).

Emmit Hines has a book that contains all the tables, although its name escapes me. It might be Fitness Swimming or something like that. It's a good book in any event, and is available on Amazon I think.