I Have My Lactate Threshold...Now What Should I do?

I recently read this and it seemed logical, but perhaps others disagree:

https://www.angio.net/personal/run/hadd.pdf

Yesterday I intended to swim 2 miles at 140 HR, per Hadd’s recommendation to start slow and move up the HR “ladder” a bit at a time.

Unfortunately my HR was 152, 152, 148, and 144 the times I checked it (finger to neck, floating in the middle of the pool). I suppose I need to slow down! Not easy though. 125 HR I can do; 170 HR I can do. Hard to find the in-between.

Swam 3100 yards yesterday, about the equivalent of running 7 miles. HR was 112 all three times I tested it. Did some strength training as well. Tired from yesterday!

I'm a current/ex-swimmer as well but have always been a sprinter.

That said, distance guys are always doing the longer intervals (in your case, ladders and 400s would be a staple)

My fave workouts are 6-8x100s on a sub-sub LT pace focusing on efficiency/smoothness with still some honest work there, right now that's 1:30/100y for me coming spin at/just under 1:20

Then a slow 50/100 back to unwind, and hit that interval again. 3000 yards isn't a lot of course, if all you're doing is swim 3k yards 2-3x week IMHO you'll want to mirror my workout which focuses on the speed with which you can swim as efficiently as possible (read easy, like your 112 HR result), and take your gains from where they are most likely to lie: your stroke

Swimming has always been about working smarter and not harder (except those sad distance types that race distances over 200 heh, but even for them...)

Throw the tempo out, ignore the LT, get a coach, have stroke analyzed, do drills, do more drills, lift weights, do more drills,,and then find a set of intervals (5x200?) that allows you to focus on efficiency

Worry about LT and endurance if you're yardage gets over 20k/week (serious master swimmer)

Thank you Sit and Kick for those good thoughts. Funny, for years I swam only the sprints. When I began this Quixotic quest to swim the 400m/500y, any amount of freestyle - literally any - would send my HR into the 130s and 140s. My aerobic fitness was that poor. I am not sure I had a lactate threshold that was discernible from my aerobic threshold. That’s probably why I’ve got some results from very slow swims. I had nowhere to go but up.

Your thoughts on training fast are well taken though. I will throw in some 400 pace work starting this week. We’ll see how it goes!

Some great points in the long memo. Thanks for sharing.

To return to the topic of a recent thread: if you're training for a marathon, easy pace is of course below marathon pace, and the memo explains why.

You’re very welcome, I found it quite interesting too. I am intrigued by his suggestion that the distance athlete must strengthen him/herself at each HR, otherwise muscle fibers will go unstimulated, and ones ability to go very fast will be compromised.

Well last weekend I swam the best 400 meters of my life. That isn’t saying much, but it was 5 seconds faster than last year. The only 400 pace work I have done since April, I did during warmup for this race. All my training has been very slow (HR 112-128) or moderate (HR 148-152).

The lack of race prep showed in this one respect - my fastest 100m (think 400m in track) was my fastest 100 by 6 seconds. Clearly I should have gone out faster.

This race was much easier than last summer’s slower race. I felt like I had a lot more energy, bought I was too old to feel that way.

I was hoping for a good race but doubly happy with this result.

Thank you for your help!

Now what? You push it to the limit.

https://youtu.be/9D-QD_HIfjA

Haha well said! Oh I plan to keep pushing it. Got a race next month and I plan to go faster God willing.