Road to Huntsman: 62 Days Out — A Breakthrough 1500M Freestyle

Today marks 62 days until the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games, and this morning’s swim produced one of the most significant benchmarks of my training so far.

The workout totaled 6,000 meters and included 3,675 meters of freestyle and 2,325 meters of breaststroke. The most important result came right at the beginning: a continuous 1500-meter freestyle in 24:21.26.

That was not just a personal training best. It was more than 43 seconds faster than the bronze-medal time in my age group at the 2025 Huntsman World Senior Games.

August 9 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Total Distance	6,000 m
Freestyle Distance	3,675 m
Breaststroke Distance	2,325 m
Total Swim Time	1:41:06.2
Total Rest Time	26:54.7
Total Session Time	2:08:00.9
Overall Swim Pace	1:41.1 /100 m
Average Freestyle Pace	1:35.3 /100 m
Average Breaststroke Pace	1:50.3 /100 m
Maximum Heart Rate	156 bpm

Workout Structure

The workout began with a dedicated 1500-meter freestyle, followed by shorter freestyle, breaststroke and mixed-stroke sets. Stroke identification in the FORM data was evaluated length-by-length rather than assuming that mixed sets were entirely one stroke.

Set	Structure	Stroke Composition	Distance	Swim Time	Pace /100	Rest
1	1 × 1500	1500 FR	1500 m	24:21.3	1:37.4	0:52.6
2	14 × 50	350 FR / 350 BR	700 m	10:44.5	1:32.1	5:45.9
3	2 × 50	100 BR	100 m	1:44.5	1:44.5	0:41.0
4	2 × 50	100 FR	100 m	1:27.5	1:27.5	0:33.4
5	2 × 50	100 BR	100 m	1:42.6	1:42.6	0:59.5
6	8 × 75	300 FR / 300 BR	600 m	9:53.8	1:39.0	3:37.6
7	1 × 300	150 FR / 150 BR	300 m	5:20.7	1:46.9	0:50.7
8	11 × 100	600 FR / 500 BR	1100 m	18:34.3	1:41.3	6:37.2
9	5 × 200	475 FR / 525 BR	1000 m	18:22.8	1:50.3	2:58.6
10	6 × 50	300 BR	300 m	5:34.6	1:51.5	3:28.2
11	2 × 100	200 FR	200 m	3:19.8	1:39.9	0:30.2

The Big Result: 1500M Freestyle

The opening 1500 meters was completed in 24:21.26, averaging approximately 1:37.42 per 100 meters.

My previous dedicated 1500-meter training benchmark was 25:46 on August 2. Today’s swim lowered that mark by approximately 1 minute 25 seconds.

Performance	Time	Pace /100 m	Difference
2025 Huntsman Bronze	25:04.75	1:40.32	—
2025 Huntsman 4th	25:06.88	1:40.46	—
8/9/2026 Training	24:21.26	1:37.42	43.49 sec faster than 2025 bronze

This is the first continuous 1500-meter training swim in this build that has moved clearly past the 2025 bronze-medal benchmark.

The swim was also completed from an in-water push start rather than a racing block, so there was no starting-dive advantage included in the time.

1500M Pace

The first 100 meters was considerably faster than the rest of the swim, after which the pace settled into a fairly narrow range:

100M	Split	100M	Split
1	1:30.1	9	1:36.0
2	1:38.6	10	1:37.3
3	1:38.1	11	1:37.2
4	1:38.4	12	1:38.0
5	1:37.0	13	1:36.4
6	1:39.9	14	1:39.6
7	1:37.5	15	1:39.2
8	1:38.0

After the opening 100, most of the swim remained between approximately 1:36 and 1:40 per 100 meters. More importantly, there was no major late-race collapse. The final 300 meters were still very close to the pace maintained throughout the middle of the swim.

What the 1500 Says About the 800M

I did not swim a dedicated 800-meter time trial today, so I am not replacing my official 800-meter training benchmark based on an intermediate split.

However, the first 800 meters of the 1500 were completed in approximately 12:57.6.

The 2025 Huntsman fourth-place time for the 800-meter freestyle was 12:56.76. That means I passed through 800 meters during today’s 1500 only about 0.8 seconds behind last year’s fourth-place 800-meter race time—while still pacing myself to swim another 700 meters.

That makes the next dedicated 800-meter test particularly interesting.

100M Breaststroke

The workout also produced a new dedicated 100-meter breaststroke training best of 1:42.55, improving on my previous benchmark of 1:44.0.

The 2025 Huntsman fourth-place time was 1:37.95, which reduces the training gap to approximately 4.6 seconds.

Updated Huntsman Benchmarks

Event	Previous Best	Current Best	2025 Bronze	2025 4th
1500M Freestyle	25:46.0	24:21.26 ⭐	25:04.75	25:06.88
800M Freestyle	13:30.2	13:30.2	12:32.85	12:56.76
200M Breaststroke	3:41.3	3:41.3	3:39.92	4:00.27
100M Breaststroke	1:44.0	1:42.55 ⭐	1:32.97	1:37.95

Current Gap to the 2025 Medal Standards

Event	Current Benchmark	Gap to Bronze	Gap to 4th
1500M Freestyle	24:21.26	43.49 sec faster	45.62 sec faster
800M Freestyle	13:30.2	57.35 sec behind	33.44 sec behind
200M Breaststroke	3:41.3	1.38 sec behind	18.97 sec faster
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	9.58 sec behind	4.60 sec behind

Progress So Far

The 1500-meter progression over the past three weeks has been especially encouraging:

Date	1500M Time
July 19	26:09.4
August 2	25:46.0
August 9	24:21.3

That represents approximately 1 minute 48 seconds of improvement since July 19.

The 200-meter breaststroke remains extremely close to the 2025 bronze standard, while the 100-meter breaststroke continues to improve. The 800-meter freestyle is the next event that needs a dedicated race-distance test because today’s first 800 meters during the 1500 strongly suggest that the existing 13:30 training benchmark no longer reflects my current fitness.

62 Days to Go

There are still 62 days of training before Huntsman. Today’s swim does not guarantee anything about race-day placement, and the 2026 field will not necessarily look like the 2025 field. But the purpose of comparing training performances to last year’s results is to provide an objective reference point for progress.

At this point, the training data show that the 1500-meter freestyle has moved into a very different competitive range, the 200-meter breaststroke remains close to a podium benchmark, and there is still enough time left in the training cycle to continue improving all four events.

Next major benchmark: a dedicated 800-meter freestyle to see whether the 12:57 intermediate split from today’s 1500 can translate into a faster standalone race-distance effort.