I swam in the 50m lanes today. My stroke rate remained pretty consistently in the 45 - 47 strokes per length through all 20 repeats. There may have been one or two lengths that I swam 44 strokes. There may have been one or two lengths that I swam 48 strokes.

There was a significant difference between the lengths swimming out and the lengths swimming back; in other words, the pushoff from the wall had a significant impact on my time. (I don't get as good a pushoff on the back length because that's the deep end. I can't get my feet on the floor; I've got to hang on to the wall and then turn around and push off. On the out length I can stand on the floor and get myself set up well for the pushoff.) The back length always took longer than the out length. My fastest back time took 0.9 seconds longer than my fastest out time. My slowest back time took 3.2 seconds more than my slowest out time. So, I separated my data into the out and back lengths to create the graphs. I think that there is also some variation due to when I pushed the button to start the length and when I pushed it at the other side. I think that the timing between starting the counter and beginning swimming was much better on the way out than the way back as well.

Overall my graphs of the data shows that my time decreased as I increased my stroke rate (decreased the seconds / stroke).

I can definitely say that 1.5 seconds per stroke is too slow. The pace started feeling good to me around 1.35 seconds per stroke.

I was very happy with the way this practice went. I'm glad that I pulled the stroke rate way back to get a sense of where the outer limit was on the slow side.

Figuring 46 strokes per 50m equates to about 20 - 21 strokes per 25yd. So, my stroke length remained pretty consistent with the practices I did on Monday and Thursday in the 25yd lanes. If anything, I would say that it was a bit better since the pushoff in the 25yd lanes should reduce my stroke count more than the pushoff will in the 50m lanes.

Looking at my best time of 64.6 seconds for 50m equates to about 59 seconds for 50 yards. However, from doing a bit of thinking on my own and a bit of research online, the odds are good that I would swim 50 yards faster in a 25 yard lane on account of the push off the wall at 25 yards. So, I would not say that I was swimming significantly slower today than I was on Monday or Thursday.

My experiment today with decreasing my stroke rate relative to what I was doing on Monday and Thursday yielded the expected results. I was able to swim at the same speed with less effort. It's clear to me that I was targeting too high a stroke rate on those days.

Tomorrow I will start at 1.40 and work my way down to 1.21. However, I will need to swim in the 25 yards lanes tomorrow. I can swim in the 50 meter lanes again on Sunday. So, I will plan to repeat decreasing from 1.40 to 1.21 on Sunday as well.

I definitely prefer swimming in the 50 meter lanes.

(I didn't get my watch to seal properly when I replaced the battery this morning. So, I hope that the moisture dries out and the watch starts functioning again in time for tomorrow's workout.)