September 1, 2026 – Starting September with Recovery and Technique

September training is officially underway.

After finishing August with 68,700 meters of swimming and completing my 75,000-yard monthly goal, September has a different purpose. The focus now shifts toward preparing specifically for my Huntsman World Senior Games events: the 200-meter breaststroke, 800-meter freestyle and 1500-meter freestyle.

Today’s workout was intentionally short and easy. I completed 1,800 meters in a different 25-meter pool than I normally use. The water was noticeably warmer than I am accustomed to, and I felt a little sluggish throughout the session.

There were also some changes to the planned organization of the sets once I started swimming, but the total distance remained exactly as planned. Since today’s objective was recovery and technique rather than a race-specific workout, those changes weren’t particularly important.

September 1 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Distance	1,800 m
Swimming Time	32:45
Average Pace	1:50/100 m
Normalized Pace	1:49/100 m
Average HR	127 bpm
Maximum HR	154 bpm
sTSS	37
Intensity Factor	0.88
Calories	490 kcal

The planned workout duration was approximately 38 minutes. I completed the swimming in 32:45, about five minutes faster than planned, despite feeling somewhat sluggish.

What I Actually Swam

FORM organized the workout somewhat differently from the original TrainingPeaks prescription. The resulting session was actually very evenly divided between my two primary strokes.

Set	Distance	Structure
1	400 m	200 FR + 200 BR
2	1,000 m	10 × 100 FR/BR
3	200 m	2 × 100 mixed
4	200 m	4 × 50 FR/BR
Total	1,800 m	900 FR / 900 BR

The final stroke distribution was exactly 900 meters freestyle and 900 meters breaststroke.

Freestyle Performance

Although this wasn’t intended to be a threshold workout, the freestyle results were interesting.

Across the 900 meters of freestyle, my average moving pace was approximately 1:38.9/100 m. The opening 200-meter freestyle was 3:23.78, approximately 1:41.9/100 m.

The five clear 100-meter freestyle repetitions during the main 10 × 100 set were particularly consistent:

100 FR	Time
1	1:36.92
2	1:39.36
3	1:40.12
4	1:38.93
5	1:39.93

The average of those five repetitions was approximately 1:39.1/100 m, remarkably close to the 1:39.5/100 m CSS benchmark established at the end of August.

There is an important qualification. These were not five consecutive 100-meter freestyle repetitions. They were separated by breaststroke swimming, so I don’t consider this a CSS or threshold performance. What it does show is that even while feeling somewhat sluggish, swimming around 1:39–1:40/100 m freestyle was readily available.

Breaststroke Performance

The breaststroke portion was considerably more relaxed, which was exactly what today’s recovery workout called for.

Across the complete 900 meters of breaststroke, the average moving pace was approximately 1:59.5/100 m.

The five dedicated 100-meter breaststroke repetitions were:

100 BR	Time
1	1:57.54
2	1:57.27
3	1:57.26
4	2:00.27
5	1:59.29

The consistency is more important than the speed. This was supposed to be controlled breaststroke rather than race work, and the times remained tightly grouped throughout the set.

My current 200-meter breaststroke benchmark is 3:27.54, approximately 1:43.8/100 m. Today’s breaststroke was intentionally nowhere near that intensity. That is another indication that the workout remained a recovery session rather than accidentally becoming another hard training day.

Feeling Sluggish in a Warmer Pool

I felt a little sluggish today, but I don’t see anything in the results that makes that particularly concerning.

The first factor is simply accumulated training load. August ended with 11,100 meters and 260 sTSS across my final three swims, including the 6,000-meter session that completed my monthly distance goal.

Today’s environment was also different. I had to swim in another 25-meter pool, and the water was warmer than the pool I normally use. That noticeably changed how the workout felt.

Despite that sluggish feeling, the actual numbers remained quite good. The freestyle repetitions were consistent, the breaststroke remained controlled and the full 1,800-meter workout was completed considerably faster than the planned duration.

Training Load

TrainingPeaks showed a relatively modest 37 sTSS for today’s session, which is appropriate for the purpose of the workout.

TrainingPeaks	Value
Fitness	71
Fatigue	116
Form	-57
Today’s sTSS	37

The high fatigue level reinforces the reason September began with a recovery-oriented workout rather than immediately returning to hard race-specific training.

September Training Log

August now has its own completed training ledger. September starts fresh.

Date	Workout	Meters	sTSS
Sep. 1	Recovery	1,800	37

September total: 1,800 meters

Week One Progress

The first September training block runs through September 6, with Sunday currently scheduled as the week’s no-swim day.

Date	Plan	Status
Sep. 1	1,800 m	Complete
Sep. 2	2,500 m	Aerobic FR + BR
Sep. 3	2,500 m	200 BR endurance
Sep. 4	2,500 m	800/1500 FR
Sep. 5	3,000 m	Long aerobic
Sep. 6	OFF	Recovery

The planned Week One swimming total is 12,300 meters. After today, 1,800 meters are complete.

Unlike August, however, the remaining distance isn’t something that needs to be chased. The planned meters provide structure. If recovery or performance indicates that the schedule should change, the training plan changes with it.

September 1 Takeaway

Today’s workout accomplished exactly what I wanted from the first swim of September.

I got back into the water without adding another large training load, completed the planned 1,800 meters, swam an even 900 meters of freestyle and 900 meters of breaststroke, and maintained remarkably consistent pacing despite feeling somewhat sluggish in a warmer and unfamiliar pool.

The freestyle numbers were particularly reassuring. Several 100-meter repetitions naturally settled very close to my current CSS pace without this being intended as a threshold workout.

The breaststroke did exactly what it was supposed to do: provide controlled stroke-specific swimming without becoming race-pace work.

September has started quietly by design. The objective now isn’t to prove fitness every day. It is to use the fitness built during August and progressively turn it into race performance for Huntsman.