When you’re gearing up for a race, and looking to estimate your effort close to race day, try this swim set to get a good feel for your current swimming prowess. You can also use this set throughout the season to monitor your progress.

The aim is to keep the swim steady with a slightly harder push towards the last third of the swim (i.e. negative split). Swim at your desired 1500m race pace and focus on “how” you’re swimming.

The warm up: aim for between 400m to 800m of drills but to be sure to include more kicking. Oh, and if you’re not regularly doing kicking drills- change that today. Once you’re warmed up, you’re ready to go. The main set is 30x50m on 60″. You can start dropping the interval to 55″ and 50″ if you feeling up to it- or if you’re coming in on sub 35″. If you’re only coming in on 50″ though, leave every 70″.

Remember, keep it evenly paced. Your last 50m should be as fast (or even slightly faster) than your first 50m. If you find yourself swimming drastically different times, don’t worry, you just need to develop a sense of pace and rhythm. It’ll come to you.

You can also tailor this set for a sprint triathlon and aim for 20x50m. Whatever distance you choose, keep the intervals at 50m and keep the pace the same. Don’t stop to talk in between repeats or to drink water. Wait till you done. And because you’re only swimming 50m at a time, you can really focus on your stroke and put in a decent flutter kick, even if you don’t race with one.

Have fun and injoy the set!