This is the 12th of 12 Weeks of Guppy. Many of you entered the Challenge formally on our Training Log; many have followed along informally. Thanks to you all. As you know, the Challenge was different this year because for the first time the workouts were available either by reading, downloading, using the workouts in the traditional way; or you could have them delivered to you in your FORM goggles.

As to that latter method, the biggest differences are that you don’t need a pool clock; and you get to use “prescribed rest” rather than “leave interval” as the interval workout platform.

But one thing happened between the beginning and the end of the Guppy Challenge: FORM delivered the game-changing feature much anticipated prior to now: the Workout Builder. This is the same feature that turned stationary cycling into a *thing*: the ability to build your own smart workout and deliver it to a smart trainer. For both users and their coaches, this is a must and FORM now has this.

In the case of the Guppy Challenge you didn’t need this feature, because your workouts were made. But this is the final week. Where do you go from here?

I’m like most of you. I didn’t come from a swim background; I have 2 other sports to wrangle; swimming is very important to me but my swim needs to improve inside athletic and lifestyle constraints I can’t escape. I’m going to just give you a snapshot of my own swim life and this might give you some small guidance.

I’m signed up for the Ho’ala Swim, which will take place in about 5 weeks, the week prior to the Hawaiian IRONMAN Triathlon in Kona. It’s held on the IRONMAN swim course. Of course I’m going to Kona because “this is the business we’ve chosen.” The Ho’ala swim is part of the fun I tweeze out of that week. But I took months off of swimming because I spent most of this past spring in constant atrial fibrillation; then recovery from an ablation to solve my afib; followed by catching COVID right after my swimming recommenced. So, I had to restart from zero, or less than zero, just a few weeks ago.

I write this not so you can cry me a river, but to tell you my strategy for recovery and, really, the battle plan in place every year since my pool closes for the winter and I face this almost annually. I don’t think you should necessarily do what I do, but if you know my plan there might be something in there for you.

The hallmarks of my return-to-swim plan are:

1. My target yardage, per workout, is from 2,000 to 3,000 per workout, and in the low 3,000s on occasion. My initial goal is to increase my yardage over the first few days so that I could comfortably swim 2,000+ yards per workout.

2. I have 3 goals for my workouts: increase fitness; increase my top speed, which eventually influences my speed during a distance swim; perfect my technique. I can’t, when unfit, swim very long before my technique breaks down. Early in my fitness my workouts consist of short distances with rest. A lot of 50s. It might be that the whole workout is just 50s, maybe 40 or 50 of them, because when I’m unfit 50 yards is as far as I can swim without my technique breaking down. If I want to swim 2,400 yards but all I can swim before my technique goes to heck is 50 yards, then I’m swimming a lot of 50s! As I get fitter, I increase my distances per repeat, and I’m swimming sets of 75 yards x however many, then I swim repeat 100s, 125s, 200s, 250s, and eventually repeat 400s.

3. I alternate between long and short rest sets. In the long rest sets I’m swimming 50s, 75s, 100s, not very many, and those swims are all-out. I do those no more than once a week. I can’t do an all-out (or near all-out) swim longer than 100yd.

4. The short rest sets are long in distance and duration and I’m just trying to comfortably make the interval. Let’s say my goal is to swim 3000 yards in something faster than 1:30 pace per each 100 yards. One workout that gives me a good indication I can do that if is I swim 6 x 400yd, leaving on the 6 minutes or maybe 6:10. But I need to get the point where I can swim that workout. The progression of workouts to get there goes something like this. Yesterday I swam 12 x 125yd leaving on the 2min. That’s a 1500 yard set in total, and the leave interval is 1min36sec (my swim plus my rest is done at a pace of 1:36 per 100 yards). Next I’ll do 8 x 250yd leaving on the 4min. That’s a 2000yd set on that same leave interval. Then it’s 12 x 200yd leaving on the 3:10. That’s a 2400yd set leaving on the 1:35 interval. As you see, I’m creeping up on that final set, the 6 x 400yd set on the 1:30 interval. This is as much for my brain as for my fitness. I know I’m getting closer to the goal with every successful completion of that workout, even if it’s touch-and-go near the end of the set.

As you see, the distances I swim in each of these longer sets grows. The total distance of might grow or might not, but the distance of the swims themselves grow. This is because, as I get fitter, I’m able to hold my technique longer. Ideal front crawl technique is not natural nor is it intuitive. I have to constantly think about technique. All the time. Regardless of how fit I am. Swimming freestyle is like marriage: Even when it’s going really well you’re a fool if you take that for granted.

I begin my swim sessions with a warm-up of perhaps 600 yards. I might swim a set of 50s, 6 of them, giving me 10 to 15 seconds rest between. Then I might throw a buoy between my legs for another set of 6 x 50, and think just about technique. That buoy makes me keep my body in line, and umasks my laziness if I’m not obeying the technical rules that keep my body linear along the major axis.

Here's the Guppy Challenge Series, in partnership with FORM goggles, the entire 12 weeks:

Guppy Challenge Week 1; Workouts for Week 1
Guppy Challenge Week 2; Workouts for Week 2
Guppy Challenge Week 3; Workouts for Week 3
The High Elbows of Good Swimmers; Workouts for Week 4
Swim Paraphernalia for Guppies; Workouts for Week 5
Swimming Isn’t Intuitive; Workouts for Week 6
Debunked Swim Mythology; Workouts for Week 7
Every Swim Workout is a Race... Not! Workouts for Week 8
Visualization, Relaxation, Emulation; Workouts for Week 9
What is Body Rotation in Freestyle? Workouts for Week 10
Lift as a Relevant Force in Swimming. Workouts for Week 11
Final Week! Guppy Week-12. Workouts for Week 12