Well, on Wednesday I did my CSS test. First time in a long time. My new CSS is 1:39 per 100 yards.
How, you ask dear reader(s), did I come up with that time? Simple really. It just takes some math:
CSS (y/sec) = (400 – 200) / (T400 – T200)
then 100/CSS = time per 100 yards
Where T400 and T200 equal your times in the 400 and 200 time trials in seconds. (My 400 was at 6:28 and my 200 at 3:11.) Or, you could simply use the calculator at Swim Smooth’s website here.
As you know, dear reader(s), I’m a big fan of using the CSS. Now I’ll use this CSS on my quality days or what the Pyramid calls base training. Or, further confusing the issue, what Swim Smooth, in their workout books, calls Fresh and Fruity Threshold sets. One such threshold set might be 20 x 100 at CSS. That’s a lot of 100s at 1:39. But does that mean no rest? Or does that mean beat 1:39 so I can get rest?
The answer is Neither. A threshold set, or a pace awareness set (yet another name for it), is designed so that you learn how to maintain a constant pace over a set distance. So you can know, while swimming, what a 1:39/100 yards feels like. Thus, I’ll need to swim each of those 100s on 1:39, hitting each wall at around 24 or 25 seconds. Well, how the hell do I do that?
I use a tempo trainer. Or a watch. As I’ve not had a lot of luck with watches over the last three years, I’m sticking with Finis’s Tempo Trainer Pro, one of the few electronics by Finis that actually doesn’t break easily. You set the TTP to beep when you’re supposed to hit the wall, then you swim, working on hitting the wall exactly when it beeps. So for my 1:39, I’ll set my TTP to beep every 24.63 seconds. Then I’ll chase the beep. With respect to the above workout, once I’ve hit the wall on the fourth beep, I’ll stop and wait for another beep to start. Thus, I’ll be doing 20 x 100 with :24.63 sec rest. It sounds counter-intuitive, but swimming a set like this once a week will lead you to improve your speed. My CSS last year kept getting better, by a second to 1.5 seconds, every 4 weeks when I’d retest. Strange but true.
For now, as I’m not training toward anything, I’ll stick to my CSS for the threshold sets. But I could use the CSS if I were working for something longer, like perhaps a 30K race in a Swiss lake. In that case I might start doing CSS + :20. Who knows.
Pace awareness. I love this phenomenon. I’ve used the same idea when I used to run – finding a pace a you manage (for the, say, 1600), then backing off slightly for longer runs. It’s a great feeling to shack the pace, or ‘beep’ in your case.
Silly question: do you swim with the watch or is it poolside? The Amazon pics don’t include a swimmer.
Kelley,
The TTP goes underneath the swim cap. You hear the beep through bone conduction. It’s not really a watch. It’s got a clip in case you use it for running or biking, or you remove the clip and put the thing under your cap for swimming.
M