Author: cmolnar

Today marks 50 days until my first event at the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games. Tuesday’s 2,500-meter workout was designed around one specific question: what happens to my 200-meter breaststroke pace when I swim the 200s early in the workout rather than after accumulating a large amount of fatigue?

That made today’s most important set 4 × 200 meters breaststroke, with a target pace of 1:50/100m, or 3:40 for each 200.

Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Total Distance	2,500 m
Breaststroke	1,600 m
Freestyle	900 m
Moving Time	43:03
Rest Time	10:20
Total Session Time	53:23
Average Pace	1:44/100 m
Normalized Pace	1:43/100 m
TrainingPeaks sTSS	58
TrainingPeaks IF	0.93
Average Heart Rate	129 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate	153 bpm
Calories	638

The Main Test: 4 × 200M Breaststroke

The target was straightforward: 1:50/100m, or 3:40 for each 200. Unlike some of my previous 200-meter efforts, these repetitions were intentionally placed near the beginning of the workout.

200	Target	Actual	Actual Pace	Difference
#1	3:40.00	3:35.67	1:47.8/100	-4.33 sec
#2	3:40.00	3:40.16	1:50.1/100	+0.16 sec
#3	3:40.00	3:48.44	1:54.2/100	+8.44 sec
#4	3:40.00	3:44.15	1:52.1/100	+4.15 sec
Average	3:40.00	3:42.11	1:51.1/100	+2.11 sec

The first two repetitions are particularly encouraging. The opening 200 was 3:35.67, more than four seconds faster than the prescribed pace. The second was 3:40.16, essentially exactly on target.

The third repetition showed the weakness I am trying to address, slipping to 3:48.44. But I was able to bring the fourth back to 3:44.15 rather than continuing to fade.

Across all four, I averaged approximately 3:42.11. That is only about two seconds slower than the 3:40 repeat target.

Planned vs. Actual Interval Pace

The chart below compares the prescribed pace with my actual pace for each of today’s repeated working intervals. Lower is faster.

The 100M Set Told a Different Story

Later in the workout I completed four 100-meter breaststroke repetitions in 1:54.64, 1:52.38, 1:49.13 and 1:54.15.

Those were well behind the planned 1:46/100m pace. Interestingly, the fastest was the third repetition rather than the first. That suggests this was not simply a steady collapse from fatigue, but the set clearly did not have the speed I would need from a 100-meter-specific workout.

The 200 Continues to Look Like the Better Breaststroke Event

This is another data point in the question I raised yesterday about whether my strengths are becoming increasingly clear as the race distance gets longer.

Today’s 200-meter set was not perfect, but the first two repetitions demonstrated that a 3:40-or-better 200 is very realistic when I am relatively fresh. I then recovered from a poor third 200 enough to improve on the fourth.

The later 100-meter set was much less convincing. That doesn’t settle the question about the 100 breaststroke, particularly because those 100s came after 800 meters of 200-meter breaststroke work. Thursday’s workout is specifically designed to reverse that situation by putting the important 100-meter work near the beginning.

Current Huntsman Benchmarks

Event	My Best Training	2025 Silver	2025 Bronze	2025 4th
1500M Freestyle	24:21.26	23:39.43	25:04.75	25:06.88
800M Freestyle	12:40.25	12:16.56	12:32.85	12:56.76
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	3:38.74	3:39.92	4:00.27
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	1:28.57	1:32.97	1:37.95

What Today’s Workout Says

The experiment of moving the 200-meter breaststroke work toward the beginning of the workout was worthwhile.

The first 200 at 3:35.67 was faster than the 2025 silver and bronze finishing times, although a training repeat is obviously not the same thing as an official race. The second 200 at 3:40.16 remained essentially on today’s prescribed target.

The challenge is repeatability. The third 200 showed that I am not yet able to simply lock onto 3:40 and reproduce it indefinitely. But today’s average of about 3:42 for four consecutive 200s is much more encouraging than evaluating the 200 solely from repetitions performed at the end of an exhausting breaststroke workout.

50 Days to Go

I am not making any decisions about dropping the 100-meter breaststroke yet.

Thursday is the important test for that event. The 100-meter breaststroke repetitions will be moved toward the front of the workout, just as today’s 200s were. That should provide a much cleaner comparison of my ability in the two breaststroke distances.

Friday remains a complete rest day. Saturday then provides another benchmark opportunity along with an 800-meter freestyle.

After Saturday, I should have enough information from this entire breaststroke-intensive week to decide whether the 100-meter breaststroke remains part of the Huntsman plan or becomes an event I swim simply for the experience.

Today’s headline: Four early 200-meter breaststroke repeats averaged approximately 3:42, with the first at 3:35.67 and the second essentially exactly on the 3:40 target. The ability to reach the desired 200 pace is clearly there. The next challenge is making that pace more repeatable.

Today marks 51 days until my first event at the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games, and day two of my Breaststroke Intensive week provided an immediate reminder of why a training plan needs to remain a plan rather than become an absolute requirement.

I entered the pool with exactly 2,500 meters programmed, including 1,600 meters of breaststroke. I completed the full 2,500 meters, but I did not complete the workout exactly as written.

During the breaststroke work I began feeling some discomfort in the upper portion of my right thigh. Rather than continue forcing the planned breaststroke volume and potentially make it worse, I substituted freestyle for some of the planned breaststroke.

The result was still a complete 2,500-meter training session, but with a considerably different stroke distribution: 1,200 meters breaststroke and 1,300 meters freestyle.

August 17 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Total Distance	2,500 m
Breaststroke	1,200 m
Freestyle	1,300 m
Moving Time	41:32
Rest Time	11:25
Total Session Time	52:57
Average Moving Pace	1:40 /100 m
TrainingPeaks sTSS	62
TrainingPeaks IF	0.96
Average Heart Rate	124 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate	152 bpm

Planned vs. Actual Workout

The most obvious difference between the planned and completed workout was the stroke distribution.

Stroke	Planned	Actual	Difference
Breaststroke	1,600 m	1,200 m	-400 m
Freestyle	900 m	1,300 m	+400 m
Total	2,500 m	2,500 m	0 m

The chart tells the story pretty clearly. I didn’t shorten the workout. Instead, I exchanged 400 meters of planned breaststroke for 400 meters of freestyle.

What I Actually Swam

Set	Actual Stroke	Distance	Moving Time
1	Freestyle	200 m	3:04.42
2	Breaststroke	100 m	1:47.94
3	Breaststroke	300 m	5:14.53
4	Freestyle	400 m	6:12.15
5	Breaststroke	200 m	3:39.65
6	Freestyle	200 m	3:03.79
7	150 BR / 50 FR	200 m	3:40.73
8	Freestyle	200 m	3:09.56
9	150 BR / 150 FR	300 m	4:44.97
10	Breaststroke	100 m	1:49.09
11	Breaststroke	200 m	3:31.27
12	Freestyle	100 m	1:33.85

The Clock Wasn’t Today’s Priority

This was originally supposed to be a controlled technique and aerobic breaststroke day. Once the thigh discomfort appeared, hitting every prescribed breaststroke interval became much less important than completing useful training without deliberately aggravating something.

That makes today’s results somewhat different from the workouts I normally use for benchmarking.

I still completed the required 2,500 meters. The workout still produced 62 sTSS. And the overall moving pace was approximately 1:40 per 100 meters. But today’s most useful result wasn’t a particular split.

It was recognizing when to change the plan.

Current Huntsman Benchmarks

Event	My Best Training	2025 Silver	2025 Bronze	2025 4th
1500M Freestyle	24:21.26	23:39.43	25:04.75	25:06.88
800M Freestyle	12:40.25	12:16.56	12:32.85	12:56.76
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	3:38.74	3:39.92	4:00.27
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	1:28.57	1:32.97	1:37.95

A Question About the 100M Breaststroke

There is another question beginning to emerge from this breaststroke-intensive week, and it may ultimately affect what I swim at Huntsman.

My 200-meter breaststroke training best of 3:31.71 compares very favorably with the 2025 results. My 100-meter best of 1:42.55 does not.

That difference may be telling me something about the type of swimmer I am.

I have never considered myself a sprinter. As this training cycle has progressed, my strongest results have increasingly come from the longer events. The 1500 freestyle has developed into one of my strongest events relative to last year’s Huntsman results. The 200 breaststroke also compares well. The 800 freestyle is competitive with last year’s field.

The 100 breaststroke remains different.

That doesn’t mean I’m scratching the event. Not yet.

There is still value in swimming a race simply for the experience, even when I know going into it that a placing is unlikely. The 100 could provide another opportunity to race, experience the competition environment and learn something useful.

But there is also a legitimate question about whether training energy is better concentrated on the events that increasingly appear to match my strengths.

I’ll Decide After Saturday

I’m not going to make that decision based on today’s workout—or on one uncomfortable thigh.

The rest of this week should provide much better information.

I may modify Tuesday’s workout depending on how the thigh feels. Wednesday remains primarily aerobic and technical. Thursday is intended to provide another look at the 100-meter breaststroke. Friday is a complete rest day.

Then Saturday’s 2,500-meter workout includes both breaststroke benchmark work and an 800-meter freestyle.

After that workout, I should have enough information from the entire week to make a more informed decision.

The question won’t simply be whether I can swim the 100 breaststroke.

It will be whether continuing to emphasize the 100 is the best use of the remaining training time—or whether my results are telling me to lean harder into the 200 breaststroke, 800 freestyle and 1500 freestyle.

51 Days to Go

Today’s workout wasn’t what was written on the schedule, but it may have been exactly the workout I needed to swim.

I completed all 2,500 meters. I reduced the breaststroke load when something didn’t feel right. I substituted freestyle rather than simply ending the workout, and I still completed a productive training session.

There are 51 days remaining, and protecting the ability to train tomorrow is more important than being able to say I followed today’s workout perfectly.

Today’s headline: The plan called for 1,600 meters of breaststroke, but right-thigh discomfort changed the workout. I still completed the full 2,500 meters by shifting 400 meters from breaststroke to freestyle. With 51 days remaining, this week is becoming about more than improving breaststroke—it may also help determine which events deserve the greatest emphasis in the final stretch toward Huntsman.

Today marks 52 days until my first swimming event at the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games, and today’s workout begins a new phase of my training: Breaststroke Intensive.

Last week was deliberately easier. I reduced my swimming volume, included a dryland running day, and gave my body an opportunity to recover from two very large weekends of training.

Now the emphasis changes.

My freestyle training has progressed very well, while my breaststroke results suggest there is still speed available that I’m not consistently converting into my 100-meter and 200-meter performances. For the next several workouts, I want to concentrate specifically on that problem.

Today’s workout was the first step: 2,500 meters, including 1,800 meters of breaststroke, with separate blocks devoted to breaststroke technique, speed, repeated 100s, repeated 200s, and finishing speed.

August 16 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Total Distance	2,500 m
Breaststroke Distance	1,800 m (72%)
Freestyle Distance	700 m
Moving Time	42:09
Rest Time	22:32
Total Session Time	1:04:42
Overall Moving Pace	1:41.2 /100 m
Average Breaststroke Pace	1:44.3 /100 m
Average Freestyle Pace	1:33.1 /100 m
TrainingPeaks sTSS	60
TrainingPeaks IF	0.95

The 22½ minutes of rest is important context. This wasn’t intended to be a continuous endurance workout. The longer recoveries were deliberately built into the workout so that the breaststroke portions could emphasize speed and quality rather than simply accumulating distance.

Workout Structure

Block	Workout	Actual Performance	Purpose
Warm-up	200 FR	3:14.53	Easy warm-up
Warm-up	100 BR	1:51.50	Easy breaststroke
Technique / Speed	6 × 50 BR	47.64–54.38	Controlled stroke and timing
Speed	12 × 25 BR	20.62–23.25	Fast, technically clean breaststroke
Recovery	2 × 100 FR	1:24.23 / 1:35.92	Reset before 100s
100M Focus	4 × 100 BR	1:45.89 / 1:44.11 / 1:45.55 / 1:45.34	Repeatable 100M pace
Recovery	200 FR	3:03.36	Reset before 200s
200M Focus	3 × 200 BR	3:46.68 / 3:50.97 / 3:54.58	Breaststroke endurance
Speed Finish	4 × 25 BR	21.25 / 22.10 / 21.87 / 21.97	Produce speed while fatigued
Cool-down	100 FR	1:33.77	Easy finish

The Most Important Set: 4 × 100M Breaststroke

The first major test was 4 × 100 meters breaststroke.

The planned target was approximately 1:45–1:47. The purpose wasn’t to swim one all-out 100 and then struggle through the remaining three. I wanted to see whether I could repeatedly produce something close to my faster breaststroke pace.

100M	Time	Target	Difference From 1:42.55 Best
1	1:45.89	1:45–1:47	+3.34
2	1:44.11	1:45–1:47	+1.56
3	1:45.55	1:45–1:47	+3.00
4	1:45.34	1:45–1:47	+2.79
Average	1:45.22	1:45–1:47	+2.67

This was the strongest result of the workout.

All four 100s were tightly grouped. The difference between the fastest and slowest was only 1.78 seconds, and there was no progressive slowdown across the set.

In fact, the second repeat was the fastest at 1:44.11, and the final repeat was still 1:45.34.

My current training best remains 1:42.55, but today’s set demonstrates something different: approximately 1:45 breaststroke is becoming repeatable rather than being an isolated effort.

The 200s Tell a Different Story

The second major test was 3 × 200 meters breaststroke.

The planned target was 3:35–3:40. Today I didn’t reach it.

200M	Time	Pace /100	Change
1	3:46.68	1:53.34	—
2	3:50.97	1:55.49	+4.29
3	3:54.58	1:57.29	+3.61
Average	3:50.74	1:55.37	—

The times themselves need some context. The first 200 didn’t begin until I had already completed 1,600 meters, including substantial breaststroke speed work and the four strong 100s.

What matters more is the pattern: 3:46.68 → 3:50.97 → 3:54.58.

Unlike the 100-meter set, there was a clear progressive slowdown.

That gives me something very specific to work on during this breaststroke-intensive phase. The issue doesn’t appear to be simply producing enough breaststroke speed. The challenge is sustaining efficient breaststroke as the duration and accumulated workload increase.

The 25s Reveal Something Important

The short breaststroke repeats provide another piece of the puzzle.

Early in the workout, I completed 12 × 25 meters breaststroke. The fastest was 20.62 seconds, and the set averaged approximately 21.62 seconds per 25.

Then, after the 100s, the 200s and almost the entire 2,500-meter workout, I finished with another four fast breaststroke 25s:

25M	Time
1	21.25
2	22.10
3	21.87
4	21.97
Average	21.80

The average was only about 0.18 second slower per 25 meters than the earlier speed set.

That’s probably the most interesting finding from today’s workout.

After almost 2,400 meters, the short-distance breaststroke speed was still there.

What deteriorated wasn’t my ability to swim a fast 25. It was my ability to sustain that speed and technique over repeated 200-meter efforts.

Current Huntsman Benchmarks

Beginning with today’s training entry, I’m adding the 2025 silver-medal results to the benchmarks I have been tracking. That gives me another useful reference point as the October races get closer.

Event	My Best Training	2025 Silver	2025 Bronze	2025 4th
1500M Freestyle	24:21.26	23:39.43	25:04.75	25:06.88
800M Freestyle	12:40.25	12:16.56	12:32.85	12:56.76
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	3:38.74	3:39.92	4:00.27
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	1:28.57	1:32.97	1:37.95

Gap to the 2025 Standards

Event	My Best	Gap to Silver	Gap to Bronze	Gap to 4th
1500M Freestyle	24:21.26	41.83 sec behind	43.49 sec faster	45.62 sec faster
800M Freestyle	12:40.25	23.69 sec behind	7.40 sec behind	16.51 sec faster
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	7.03 sec faster	8.21 sec faster	28.56 sec faster
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	13.98 sec behind	9.58 sec behind	4.60 sec behind

Two Very Different Breaststroke Events

The updated benchmark table highlights something interesting about my two breaststroke events.

My 200-meter training best of 3:31.71 is already 7.03 seconds faster than the 2025 silver-medal time.

The 100 is very different. My 1:42.55 training best remains 4.60 seconds behind the 2025 fourth-place time, 9.58 seconds behind bronze, and 13.98 seconds behind silver.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m simply an endurance breaststroker. Today’s 25-meter repeats show that I can still produce considerably more speed over short distances.

The challenge is figuring out how to convert more of that speed into the 100 and then sustain enough of it through the 200.

What Today’s Workout Taught Me

Today’s workout gave me a much clearer picture of what I need from this breaststroke-intensive training phase.

• Short-distance speed: Good. I can repeatedly swim approximately 21–22 second 25s.
• Repeatable 100M pace: Improving. Four 100s averaged 1:45.22 with very little variation.
• 200M durability: Needs work. The three 200s progressively slowed from 3:46.68 to 3:54.58.
• Late-workout speed: Very encouraging. The final four 25s were nearly as fast as the early speed set.

That gives this training block a much more specific objective than simply swimming more breaststroke.

I need to connect the pieces.

I have the speed to swim a fast 25. I’m developing the ability to repeatedly swim around 1:45 for 100 meters. Now I need to improve how much of that speed I can carry through an entire 100 and how efficiently I can maintain the stroke through 200 meters.

52 Days to Go

Today’s 2,500 meters wasn’t about setting another training personal best.

It was about diagnosing the problem.

The 4 × 100 set showed that my breaststroke pace is becoming more repeatable. The 3 × 200 set showed where accumulated fatigue begins to affect performance. And the final 4 × 25 demonstrated that even after the 200s, the underlying speed hadn’t disappeared.

That’s useful information for deciding what comes next.

The goal over the next several days isn’t simply to make every workout harder. It is to use different breaststroke-focused workouts to address the specific weaknesses today’s session exposed.

Today’s headline: Breaststroke Intensive began with 1,800 meters of breaststroke inside a 2,500-meter workout. Four 100s averaged 1:45.22 with excellent consistency, while the repeated 200s exposed the next target: turning good short-distance speed into breaststroke speed that lasts.

Today marks 53 days until my first event at the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games, and today’s swim completed what has deliberately been a much lighter week of training.

I again held the workout to 2,500 meters. Most of the first 2,000 meters was easy mixed freestyle and breaststroke swimming. Then, rather than simply adding more distance, I finished with 500 meters devoted entirely to breaststroke.

That was intentional because tomorrow marks another change in the training plan. After using this week to recover from two extremely large weekends, I’m going to spend the coming week putting substantially more emphasis on the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke.

August 15 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Total Distance	2,500 m
Breaststroke Distance	1,500 m
Freestyle Distance	1,000 m
Total Swim Time	44:29.02
Total Rest Time	5:55.46
Total Session Time	50:24.48
Overall Moving Pace	1:46.76 /100 m
Average Freestyle Pace	1:35.77 /100 m
Average Breaststroke Pace	1:54.09 /100 m

Workout Structure

The first 2,000 meters were deliberately easy and mixed. Stroke identification below comes from the FORM goggles’ length-by-length data rather than relying solely on the name FORM assigned to each set.

Set	Structure	Stroke Composition	Distance	Swim Time	Pace /100	Rest
1	1 × 1000	500 FR / 500 BR	1,000 m	17:35.01	1:45.50	0:28.84
2	1 × 200	100 FR / 100 BR	200 m	3:29.90	1:44.95	0:46.97
3	2 × 400	400 FR / 400 BR	800 m	14:23.91	1:47.99	1:11.03
4	6 × 50	300 BR	300 m	5:21.24	1:47.08*	2:31.14
5	2 × 100	200 BR	200 m	3:38.96	1:49.48*	0:57.48

*Pace for interval sets is calculated from swimming time only. Recovery between repetitions is excluded.

The First 2,000 Meters: Easy by Design

The first 2,000 meters weren’t intended to produce race benchmarks. They were primarily continuous mixed-stroke swimming at a controlled effort.

The opening 1,000 meters contained exactly 500 meters of freestyle and 500 meters of breaststroke and took 17:35.01.

That was followed by another 200 meters split evenly between the two strokes and then 2 × 400 meters, again containing equal amounts of freestyle and breaststroke.

By the 2,000-meter mark I had accumulated exactly 1,000 meters freestyle and 1,000 meters breaststroke. That was enough general aerobic work for today.

The final 500 meters changed the purpose of the workout.

6 × 50M Breaststroke

The first breaststroke-specific set was 6 × 50 meters with recovery between each repeat.

50M	Time	100M Equivalent Pace
1	52.95	1:45.90
2	52.79	1:45.58
3	52.39	1:44.78
4	54.83	1:49.66
5	54.87	1:49.74
6	53.41	1:46.82

The fastest was 52.39, but the more useful result was the consistency. All six repeats fell within a range of only 2.48 seconds.

The final repeat also came back down to 53.41 after two 54-second swims. There wasn’t a progressive collapse across the set.

Finishing With 2 × 100M Breaststroke

The final set was the most relevant to where my training goes next: 2 × 100-meter breaststroke.

100M	Time	Current Best	Difference
1	1:51.50	1:42.55	+8.95
2	1:47.46	1:42.55	+4.91

The second 100 was actually 4.04 seconds faster than the first.

That’s noteworthy because it came at the very end of the workout. I had already completed 2,400 meters, including 1,400 meters of breaststroke, before beginning that final 100.

A 1:47.46 isn’t a new benchmark—my current best remains 1:42.55—but today wasn’t intended to be a benchmark workout. Finishing an easy 2,500-meter session with a sub-1:48 breaststroke 100 is a useful result going into a week specifically devoted to improving the stroke.

Current Huntsman Benchmarks

Today’s workout doesn’t change any of my official race-distance training benchmarks.

Event	Current Training Best	2025 Bronze	2025 4th
1500M Freestyle	24:21.26	25:04.75	25:06.88
800M Freestyle	12:40.25	12:32.85	12:56.76
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	3:39.92	4:00.27
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	1:32.97	1:37.95

The Breaststroke Hump

The freestyle events have made significant jumps during this training cycle. Breaststroke has improved too, particularly the 200, but I feel like I’ve reached a point where simply swimming more breaststroke isn’t necessarily producing the improvement I want in the 100 and 200.

That’s the hump I want to work on next.

My current 200-meter training best of 3:31.71 is already faster than the 2025 Huntsman bronze-medal result. The 100-meter best of 1:42.55, however, remains 4.60 seconds behind last year’s fourth-place time and 9.58 seconds behind bronze.

The answer probably isn’t another enormous endurance block. The next step is to concentrate more specifically on the things that determine breaststroke speed: maintaining an effective stroke under load, getting more speed from each pull and kick, controlling stroke timing, improving turns and pullouts, and learning to hold a faster pace without technique deteriorating.

Tomorrow Starts a Breaststroke Week

The recovery week has done what I wanted it to do.

I reduced the swimming volume, stayed active, took a complete day away from the pool yesterday with a dryland run, and returned today for another controlled 2,500-meter swim.

Tomorrow I’ll begin a week with a much stronger breaststroke emphasis.

That doesn’t mean simply piling on thousands of meters of breaststroke. The objective will be quality and specificity.

I want to work specifically on the two events where there is still a speed problem to solve: the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke.

The 100 requires more speed. The 200 requires finding the balance between that speed and holding technically sound breaststroke for four lengths of a 50-meter competition pool.

53 Days to Go

There are now 53 days until the first race.

This week was about backing away from the enormous training loads of the previous two weekends and giving that work time to settle in.

Today was an appropriate way to finish that phase: 2,500 controlled meters, an easy first 2,000, then six consistent breaststroke 50s and two breaststroke 100s to finish.

Tomorrow the objective changes.

Instead of asking how much breaststroke I can swim, the question for the coming week will be:

What do I need to change to make my breaststroke faster?

With 53 days remaining, there is still time to find out.

Today’s headline: An easy 2,500-meter swim closed out recovery week, with the final 500 meters dedicated entirely to breaststroke. Tomorrow begins a more intensive week aimed specifically at breaking through the plateau in my 100 and 200 breaststroke times.

Today marks 54 days until my first event at the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games, and for the first time this week the day’s workout had nothing to do with swimming.

That was intentional.

After several consecutive days in the pool—and two very large weekend swimming workouts before that—I wanted a day that would give my shoulders and swimming-specific muscles a genuine break without turning the day into complete inactivity.

So today’s Road to Huntsman workout was a 3.3-mile run.

August 14 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Activity	Running
Distance	3.30 miles
Time	38:34
Average Pace	11:41 /mile
Distance	5.32 km
Average Pace	7:15 /km
Average Heart Rate	136 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate	158 bpm

Run Structure

The run wasn’t intended to be a race or a running benchmark. The objective was simply to stay aerobically active while taking swimming out of the equation for a day.

Segment	Time	Pace
Mile 1	11:30	11:30 /mile
Mile 2	10:43	10:43 /mile
Mile 3	12:03	12:03 /mile
Final 0.30 mile	4:18	Approximately 14:11 /mile
Total	38:34	11:41 /mile

The second mile was the quickest at 10:43. Pace then backed off during the second half, which was completely acceptable for the purpose of today’s workout. This wasn’t supposed to become another hard training test.

Why Run Instead of Swim?

One of the challenges in preparing for four swimming events is remembering that more swimming isn’t automatically better swimming.

I’ve been deliberately holding the swimming volume down this week following two extremely long weekend workouts. The last three pool sessions were each limited to approximately 2,500 meters, but even reduced-volume swimming still repeatedly loads the shoulders, chest, back and the other muscles involved in freestyle and breaststroke.

Today removed that repetitive swimming load completely.

Running allowed me to continue working aerobically while giving the upper body a day away from thousands of additional swimming strokes.

Recovery Doesn’t Always Mean Rest

This week has reinforced an important distinction in my training plan: recovery and inactivity aren’t necessarily the same thing.

There are certainly times when complete rest is appropriate. But today I wanted to remain active while changing the physical stress.

A 38-minute run accomplished that.

My cardiovascular system still had work to do. My legs had work to do. But my shoulders didn’t have to complete another freestyle pull or breaststroke recovery.

That’s an important distinction as the training becomes increasingly specific over the next several weeks.

The Recovery Week So Far

This week wasn’t intended to produce another enormous training load. The goal has been to absorb the work from the previous weekends while continuing to train with purpose.

Date	Primary Focus	Volume
August 11	Recovery + 200M breaststroke focus	2,500 m swim
August 12	Recovery + 100M breaststroke focus	2,500 m swim
August 13	Continuous mixed-stroke endurance	2,500 m swim
August 14	Dryland / active recovery	3.30-mile run

The pattern is deliberate. Training hasn’t stopped, but the type and amount of stress have changed.

No Swimming Benchmarks Today

Obviously, today’s run doesn’t change any of my Huntsman swimming benchmarks.

Event	Current Training Best	2025 Bronze	2025 4th
1500M Freestyle	24:21.26	25:04.75	25:06.88
800M Freestyle	12:40.25	12:32.85	12:56.76
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	3:39.92	4:00.27
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	1:32.97	1:37.95

But that doesn’t mean today was unrelated to those numbers.

The purpose of recovery is to make the next quality workout better. A day away from the pool can contribute to an October swimming performance just as surely as another interval set can.

54 Days to Go

There are now 54 days until my first race at Huntsman.

At this stage, one of the challenges is resisting the temptation to treat every day as an opportunity to add more meters.

The fitness doesn’t improve during the workout itself. The workout provides the stimulus. The improvement comes when the body has an opportunity to recover and adapt to that stimulus.

Today’s run was part of creating that opportunity.

I stayed active. I got more than 38 minutes of aerobic work. I covered 3.3 miles. But for an entire day, my shoulders and swimming muscles didn’t have to do their normal job.

Tomorrow they’ll be one day fresher because of it.

Today’s headline: Sometimes the best swimming workout is not swimming. A 3.3-mile run kept the Road to Huntsman moving forward while giving the muscles that have been doing thousands of meters in the pool a needed day away from swimming.

Today marks 58 days until the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games, and I continued the reduced-volume recovery week by once again stopping the workout at 2,500 meters.

The difference today was how those 2,500 meters were organized. Rather than repeated 100-meter efforts with substantial recovery, today’s workout consisted primarily of two continuous 1,000-meter mixed-stroke swims, followed by a continuous 500-meter mixed-stroke finish.

The result was a workout with considerably less rest and more continuous swimming, while still maintaining the 2,500-meter volume limit I’ve been using during this recovery period.

August 13 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Total Distance	2,500 m
Freestyle Distance	1,250 m
Breaststroke Distance	1,250 m
Total Swim Time	44:04.37
Total Rest Time	1:39.13
Total Session Time	45:43.50
Overall Moving Pace	1:45.77 /100 m
Average Freestyle Pace	1:36.49 /100 m
Average Breaststroke Pace	1:55.06 /100 m

Workout Structure

The FORM file describes the primary set as 2 × 1000 meters, but the length-by-length stroke data provide the more useful picture. Each 1,000 contained exactly 500 meters freestyle and 500 meters breaststroke.

The final 500 meters was also evenly divided between the two strokes, giving the entire workout a perfect 50/50 split: 1,250 meters freestyle and 1,250 meters breaststroke.

Set	Structure	Freestyle	Breaststroke	Total	Swim Time	Pace /100	Rest
1	Mixed	500 m	500 m	1000 m	17:24.86	1:44.49	0:37.86
2	Mixed	500 m	500 m	1000 m	17:44.99	1:46.50	1:01.27
3	Alternating FR/BR	250 m	250 m	500 m	8:54.52	1:46.90	—

The First 1000M

The first 1,000 meters was completed in 17:24.86, averaging 1:44.49 per 100 meters across the combined strokes.

Within that swim, the 500 meters of freestyle totaled approximately 8:03.08, an average of 1:36.62 per 100 meters.

The 500 meters of breaststroke totaled approximately 9:21.78, averaging 1:52.36 per 100 meters.

That breaststroke pace is particularly useful because it was accumulated inside a continuous 1,000-meter swim rather than as isolated repetitions with long recovery periods.

The Second 1000M

After only 37.86 seconds of recovery, I started the second 1,000 meters.

The second 1,000 was completed in 17:44.99, just 20.13 seconds slower than the first.

Stroke	First 1000	Second 1000	Change
Freestyle — 500 m	8:03.08	8:05.40	+2.32 sec
Breaststroke — 500 m	9:21.78	9:39.59	+17.81 sec
Total 1000	17:24.86	17:44.99	+20.13 sec

This comparison makes the fatigue pattern fairly clear.

Freestyle barely changed. Five hundred meters of freestyle in the second 1,000 was only 2.32 seconds slower than in the first.

Almost all of the slowdown occurred in breaststroke. The second 500 meters of accumulated breaststroke was 17.81 seconds slower than the first.

That continues a pattern I’ve seen in several workouts: freestyle remains remarkably resistant to fatigue, while breaststroke pace is more sensitive to accumulated workload.

Finishing With Another 500M

After the second 1,000, I rested for 1:01.27 and then completed another continuous 500 meters, alternating freestyle and breaststroke by 25-meter lengths.

The final 500 was completed in 8:54.52, averaging 1:46.90 per 100 meters overall.

The freestyle portion remained strong at approximately 7:55.22 per 500-meter equivalent pace, while the breaststroke portion reflected the accumulated breaststroke fatigue from the first 2,000 meters.

Stroke Comparison Across the Entire Workout

Stroke	Distance	Moving Time	Average Pace /100 m
Freestyle	1,250 m	20:06.09	1:36.49
Breaststroke	1,250 m	23:58.28	1:55.06

Today’s structure makes this an unusually clean comparison because the two strokes were swum for exactly the same distance.

Freestyle was approximately 18.6 seconds per 100 meters faster than breaststroke across the entire workout.

No Benchmark Changes Today

Today’s workout wasn’t structured as a race-distance time trial for any of my four Huntsman events. Because the freestyle and breaststroke were deliberately mixed within the longer swims, I’m not going to manufacture race benchmarks from portions of those sets.

My current event benchmarks therefore remain unchanged:

Event	Current Training Best	2025 Bronze	2025 4th
1500M Freestyle	24:21.26	25:04.75	25:06.88
800M Freestyle	12:40.25	12:32.85	12:56.76
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	3:39.92	4:00.27
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	1:32.97	1:37.95

Current Gap to the 2025 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	12:40.25	7.40 sec behind	16.51 sec faster
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	8.21 sec faster	28.56 sec faster
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	9.58 sec behind	4.60 sec behind

A Different Kind of Recovery Workout

The last several days have all been limited to 2,500 meters, but they haven’t been identical workouts.

August 11 emphasized breaststroke with substantial recovery and produced a new 200-meter breaststroke benchmark. August 12 concentrated on repeated 100-meter breaststroke efforts with freestyle separating them.

Today kept the same 2,500-meter ceiling but changed the stimulus again. Instead of frequent stops, almost the entire workout consisted of long continuous swimming.

There was only 1 minute 39 seconds of rest during the entire 2,500 meters.

That allowed me to maintain the reduced-volume recovery plan while still getting meaningful endurance work from both of my Huntsman strokes.

58 Days to Go

Today’s workout didn’t produce a new race-distance benchmark, and it wasn’t supposed to.

The useful result was consistency.

I completed 2,500 meters with an exact 50/50 split between freestyle and breaststroke, only 1:39 of total rest, and almost no deterioration in freestyle pace between the first and second 1,000-meter blocks.

Breaststroke showed more fatigue, which continues to identify an important training opportunity for the remaining weeks: maintaining breaststroke mechanics and speed as accumulated breaststroke distance increases.

Most importantly, I again stopped at the planned 2,500 meters.

The goal this week isn’t to prove that I can swim farther. It’s to absorb the heavy training from the previous two weekends while continuing to touch the specific skills and energy systems I’ll need in October.

Today’s headline: 2,500 meters, exactly half freestyle and half breaststroke, only 1:39 of total rest, and a second 1,000-meter block only 20 seconds slower than the first. A controlled endurance session that stayed within the recovery-week plan.

Today marks 60 days until the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games. After two extremely long weekend workouts in consecutive weeks, today’s objective was deliberately different: reduce the overall workload while putting most of the swimming emphasis on breaststroke.

The result was a 2,500-meter session—considerably shorter than Sunday’s 6,000 meters—with 1,525 meters of breaststroke and 975 meters of freestyle.

Despite being primarily a recovery and technique-focused day, the workout produced an unexpected result: a continuous 200-meter breaststroke in 3:31.71. That becomes my fastest dedicated 200-meter breaststroke training swim so far.

August 11 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Total Distance	2,500 m
Breaststroke Distance	1,525 m
Freestyle Distance	975 m
Total Swim Time	41:54.1
Total Rest Time	12:40.5
Total Session Time	54:34.6
Overall Swim Pace	1:40.6 /100 m
Average Breaststroke Pace	1:44.8 /100 m
Average Freestyle Pace	1:34.0 /100 m

Workout Structure

The workout was intentionally broken into shorter sets with substantially more recovery than a normal endurance workout. Stroke identification comes directly from the FORM goggles’ length-by-length data rather than assuming that mixed sets were a single stroke.

Set	Structure	Stroke	Distance	Swim Time	Pace /100	Rest
1	1 × 100	Freestyle	100 m	1:31.72	1:31.7	0:27.3
2	1 × 200	Breaststroke	200 m	3:31.71	1:45.9	0:46.3
3	1 × 100	Freestyle	100 m	1:33.12	1:33.1	0:13.5
4	12 × 25	Breaststroke	300 m	4:46.74	1:35.6*	3:17.6
5	1 × 100	Freestyle	100 m	1:33.15	1:33.2	0:16.9
6	14 × 50	Breaststroke	700 m	12:09.57	1:44.2*	4:27.4
7	5 × 100	Freestyle	500 m	8:02.63	1:36.5*	1:29.5
8	4 × 100	Mixed: 175 FR / 225 BR	Mixed	400 m	6:52.31	1:43.1	1:42.1
9	1 × 100	Breaststroke	100 m	1:53.15	1:53.2	—

*The pace shown for interval sets is calculated from swimming time only. Recovery between individual repetitions is excluded.

The Main Result: 200M Breaststroke

Early in the workout, immediately after a 100-meter freestyle warm-up, I swam a continuous 200-meter breaststroke in 3:31.71.

This was an in-water push start, consistent with the way I’ve been recording my training benchmarks.

My previous dedicated 200-meter breaststroke benchmark was 3:41.3 from August 3. Today’s swim improves that by approximately 9.6 seconds.

Performance	Time	Pace /100 m	Difference from Today
2025 Huntsman Bronze	3:39.92	1:49.96	Today is 8.21 sec faster
2025 Huntsman 4th	4:00.27	2:00.14	Today is 28.56 sec faster
8/11/2026 Training	3:31.71	1:45.86	—

This is particularly encouraging because today was not intended to be a major benchmark workout. The 200 came near the beginning of a deliberately reduced-volume recovery session.

Breaststroke Focus

After the 200-meter benchmark, most of today’s breaststroke work shifted toward shorter repetitions.

The first speed-oriented block was 12 × 25 meters breaststroke. The individual 25s were generally in the 22–24 second range, with the fastest at approximately 22.21 seconds.

That was followed later by 14 × 50 meters breaststroke. The first several 50s were very consistent:

50M	Time
1	50.37
2	50.57
3	50.92
4	51.57
5	51.40
6	51.59
7	52.17
8	52.46
9	52.76
10	51.98
11	50.46
12	54.17
13	53.74
14	55.41

There is a visible fatigue pattern near the end of the set, but that was acceptable today. The objective wasn’t to turn this into another high-load endurance session. The shorter repetitions allowed me to work on breaststroke speed and mechanics while keeping the total workout under control.

Freestyle as Active Recovery

Freestyle served primarily as recovery and stroke variation today, but the pace remained solid.

The dedicated 5 × 100-meter freestyle set was:

100M	Time
1	1:34.66
2	1:38.52
3	1:35.37
4	1:35.77
5	1:38.31

Considering that freestyle was not the priority today, maintaining roughly 1:35–1:38 per 100 meters was a useful sign that yesterday’s 800-meter effort and the preceding weekend workload had not produced a major loss of swimming quality.

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	12:40.25	12:32.85	12:56.76
200M Breaststroke	3:41.3	3:31.71 ⭐	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	12:40.25	7.40 sec behind	16.51 sec faster
200M Breaststroke	3:31.71	8.21 sec faster	28.56 sec faster
100M Breaststroke	1:42.55	9.58 sec behind	4.60 sec behind

Recovery Doesn’t Have to Mean Doing Nothing

Today’s workout illustrates an important distinction in the training plan.

A recovery session doesn’t necessarily mean getting into the pool and swimming everything slowly. It can also mean reducing total workload while keeping selected portions of the workout technically focused and relatively fast.

Sunday was 6,000 meters. Today was 2,500.

Instead of another endurance test, today’s workload was broken into short repetitions with frequent recovery. More than 60 percent of the distance was breaststroke, allowing me to concentrate specifically on one of my Huntsman strokes without accumulating another enormous training load.

60 Days to Go

The last three days have produced new training benchmarks in three different Huntsman events:

Date	Event	New Benchmark
August 9	1500M Freestyle	24:21.26
August 10	800M Freestyle	12:40.25
August 11	200M Breaststroke	3:31.71

That’s encouraging, but it also reinforces the decision not to keep increasing the workload simply because the times are improving.

The endurance work has been done. This week is about absorbing it.

Today’s 2,500 meters accomplished exactly what I wanted from the session: substantially lower volume, a strong breaststroke emphasis, plenty of recovery between repetitions, and enough speed to keep the race-specific work moving forward.

Today’s headline: A recovery-focused 2,500-meter workout produced a 3:31.71 200-meter breaststroke—my new training best and 8.21 seconds faster than the 2025 Huntsman bronze-medal benchmark.

After two extremely long weekend training sessions in a row, I’ve reached an important point in my preparation for the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games: deciding when to stop building fitness and start allowing that fitness to show.

My first swimming event is October 7, which leaves a little more than eight weeks.

The conclusion I’ve reached is that it’s too early for the actual taper—but it’s exactly the right time for a recovery and consolidation week.

Because of some health-related considerations, I’m also planning a somewhat longer taper than many swimmers might use. Rather than waiting until the final week or two, my formal taper will begin around September 17, approximately 20 days before my first race.

The Basic Plan

The next eight weeks aren’t simply going to be “train hard until taper.”

I’m dividing them into four phases:

1. Recovery and consolidation

After two unusually demanding weekends, I’ll reduce volume for a week and give my body an opportunity to absorb the training I’ve already done.

This isn’t the taper. It’s recovery between training blocks.

2. Race-specific training

After the recovery week, I’ll return to normal training, but the emphasis will increasingly move away from accumulating distance and toward the events I’ll actually be racing:

• 1500m Freestyle
• 800m Freestyle
• 200m Breaststroke
• 100m Breaststroke

The endurance base is largely established. The objective now is converting that endurance into sustainable race pace, efficient technique, and speed.

3. Final quality block

The first half of September will contain the final serious race simulations and benchmark workouts.

After approximately September 13, there isn’t much additional fitness to be gained that will outweigh the risk of carrying fatigue into October.

4. The taper

My formal taper begins around September 17.

Training volume will progressively decline while race-specific intensity remains. The idea isn’t to stop swimming or simply swim easily for three weeks.

It’s to remove fatigue without allowing the adaptations from months of training to disappear.

Training Calendar

August 2026

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10 Recovery	11 Recovery	12 Recovery	13 Recovery	14 Recovery	15 Recovery
16 Recovery	17 Build	18 Build	19 Build	20 Build	21 Build	22 Build
23 Build	24 Build	25 Build	26 Build	27 Build	28 Build	29 Build
30 Build	31 Build

August goal: Absorb the recent heavy workload, then return to race-specific training.

The biggest change will probably be the weekend sessions. I don’t need another enormous workout every Saturday simply to demonstrate that I can complete the distance. Long sessions still have a place, but quality is becoming more important than raw volume.

---

September 2026

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
		1 Build	2 Build	3 Build	4 Build	5 Build
6 Build	7 Final Quality	8 Final Quality	9 Final Quality	10 Final Quality	11 Final Quality	12 Final Quality
13 Final Test	14 Transition	15 Transition	16 Transition	17 TAPER	18 TAPER	19 TAPER
20 TAPER	21 TAPER	22 TAPER	23 TAPER	24 TAPER	25 TAPER	26 TAPER
27 TAPER	28 TAPER	29 TAPER	30 TAPER

September goal: Finish the fitness-building phase and gradually shift the priority from accumulating fitness to eliminating fatigue.

The September 7–13 period will be particularly important. That’s where I want the final meaningful race simulations.

After that, I’m no longer trying to prove fitness in training.

---

October 2026

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
				1 TAPER	2 TAPER	3 TAPER
4 TAPER	5 TAPER	6 Pre-Race	7 RACE

October goal: Arrive at the starting block rested, sharp, and ready to race.

What the Taper Will Look Like

I’m planning approximately a three-week taper, with training volume declining progressively.

A rough target is:

Period	Training Volume	Objective
Aug. 10–16	60–70%	Recovery/consolidation
Aug. 17–Sep. 6	Normal	Race-specific development
Sep. 7–13	Normal/slightly reduced	Final quality workouts
Sep. 14–16	~80%	Transition
Sep. 17–23	~70%	Taper begins
Sep. 24–30	~50–60%	Shed accumulated fatigue
Oct. 1–5	~30–40%	Freshness and speed
Oct. 6	Very light	Pre-race
Oct. 7	RACE	Time to find out if the plan worked

These percentages aren’t intended to dictate every workout. They’re guidelines for controlling overall workload.

Importantly, volume decreases much more than intensity.

I’ll still include short race-pace efforts, starts, turns, and technically good swimming. What disappears is much of the repetitive distance surrounding those efforts.

Why I’m Taking a Longer Taper

There isn’t one perfect taper for every athlete.

Age, training history, accumulated fatigue, race distances, recovery rate, and individual health considerations all affect how quickly someone recovers from a heavy training block.

For me, health-related recovery considerations make a somewhat longer taper appropriate.

That doesn’t mean three weeks of resting.

It means progressively reducing the amount of work while maintaining enough intensity to keep the body prepared to race.

I’d much rather arrive in Utah wondering whether I could have done one more hard workout than arrive wondering whether I did one too many.

The Long Workouts Have Done Their Job

This may be the most important realization at this stage of training.

I’ve now completed two extremely long weekend workouts in consecutive weeks.

Those sessions had a purpose. They helped establish endurance and demonstrated that I can handle substantial workloads.

But repeating enormous sessions every weekend doesn’t necessarily produce better results.

Eventually the cost of the workout begins exceeding the benefit.

The focus now changes from:

“How much work can I complete?”

to:

“How fast and efficiently can I swim the events I’m actually racing?”

That means more attention to race pace, turns, starts, breaststroke technique, pacing discipline, and maintaining form while swimming fast.

Sixty Days to Go

The temptation this far from a major competition is to keep adding work.

More meters. Longer sessions. Another benchmark. Another test.

But training isn’t just the work itself.

Training = stress + recovery + adaptation.

The last two weekends provided plenty of stress.

This week provides recovery.

Then comes another focused training block.

And beginning September 17, the objective changes again. At that point I’m not trying to build significantly more fitness.

I’m trying to uncover the fitness I’ve already built.

October 7 is the test—not the workouts leading up to it.

Today marks 61 days until the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games, and this morning’s swim produced another major improvement in my race-specific training.

Yesterday’s workout produced a breakthrough 1500-meter freestyle. Today I followed that with a dedicated 800-meter freestyle in 12:40.25, cutting nearly 50 seconds from my previous standalone 800-meter training best.

More importantly, that time is now faster than the 2025 fourth-place Huntsman result in my age group and only 7.4 seconds behind last year’s bronze-medal time.

August 10 Workout Summary

Metric	Result
Total Distance	2,500 m
Freestyle Distance	1,575 m
Breaststroke Distance	925 m
Total Swim Time	41:32.6
Total Rest Time	7:50.8
Total Session Time	49:23.3
Overall Swim Pace	1:39.7 /100 m
Average Freestyle Pace	1:33.3 /100 m
Average Breaststroke Pace	1:50.6 /100 m
Average Moving Heart Rate	Approximately 130 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate	159 bpm

Workout Structure

The workout began with the dedicated 800-meter freestyle benchmark, followed by mixed 100-meter intervals and shorter freestyle and breaststroke repeats. Stroke identification was taken directly from the FORM file’s length-by-length stroke data.

Set	Structure	Stroke Composition	Distance	Swim Time	Pace /100	Rest
1	1 × 800	800 FR	800 m	12:40.25	1:35.03	0:37.2
2	100	25 FR / 75 BR	100 m	1:46.4	1:46.4	0:20.4
3	100	50 FR / 50 BR	100 m	1:43.2	1:43.2	0:44.0
4	100	50 FR / 50 BR	100 m	1:39.5	1:39.5	0:13.3
5	100	50 FR / 50 BR	100 m	1:41.1	1:41.1	0:18.5
6	100	50 FR / 50 BR	100 m	1:41.8	1:41.8	0:31.5
7	100	75 FR / 25 BR	100 m	1:38.1	1:38.1	0:14.8
8	100	25 FR / 75 BR	100 m	1:45.8	1:45.8	0:22.1
9	100	50 FR / 50 BR	100 m	1:42.1	1:42.1	0:23.8
10	100	50 FR / 50 BR	100 m	1:43.3	1:43.3	0:27.4
11	100	50 FR / 50 BR	100 m	1:42.2	1:42.2	0:23.2
12	100	100 FR	100 m	1:35.1	1:35.1	0:16.2
13	100	100 BR	100 m	1:48.0	1:48.0	0:46.2
14	50	50 FR	50 m	0:43.4	1:26.9	0:14.6
15	50	50 BR	50 m	0:51.5	1:43.0	0:18.5
16	50	50 FR	50 m	0:44.9	1:29.7	0:14.6
17	50	50 BR	50 m	0:54.2	1:48.3	0:17.8
18	100	100 BR	100 m	1:50.7	1:50.7	0:25.3
19	100	100 FR	100 m	1:35.4	1:35.4	0:14.8
20	50	50 BR	50 m	0:54.2	1:48.5	0:26.7
21	50	50 BR	50 m	0:51.4	1:42.8	—

The Big Result: 800M Freestyle

The first set of the workout was a continuous 800-meter freestyle completed in 12:40.25, averaging approximately 1:35.03 per 100 meters.

My previous standalone 800-meter training benchmark was 13:30.2 from August 5. Today’s result improves that benchmark by approximately 49.95 seconds.

Performance	Time	Pace /100 m	Difference from Today
2025 Huntsman Bronze	12:32.85	1:34.11	7.40 sec faster than today
2025 Huntsman 4th	12:56.76	1:37.10	Today is 16.51 sec faster
8/10/2026 Training	12:40.25	1:35.03	—

This puts the 800-meter freestyle into a substantially different competitive position than it was only a week ago. Today’s training time is now comfortably faster than last year’s fourth-place performance and within single digits of the 2025 bronze-medal result.

800M Pacing

The 100-meter splits for the 800 were approximately:

100M	Split
1	1:20.0
2	1:36.1
3	1:36.6
4	1:37.4
5	1:38.1
6	1:37.5
7	1:37.8
8	1:36.7

The first 100 meters was much quicker than the rest of the swim, after which the pace settled into a narrow range of approximately 1:36 to 1:38 per 100 meters.

Most importantly, there was no significant late fade. The final 100 was approximately 1:36.7, slightly faster than several of the middle splits. That indicates that the pace was sustainable rather than simply the result of an overly aggressive opening.

Breaststroke Work

Today was not primarily a breaststroke benchmark session. Most of the breaststroke work was incorporated into mixed intervals, with only a few clean dedicated breaststroke repeats.

The dedicated 100-meter breaststroke efforts were approximately 1:48.0 and 1:50.7, slower than my current 1:42.55 best from August 9. Therefore, the official 100-meter breaststroke benchmark does not change.

There was no continuous dedicated 200-meter breaststroke effort today, so the current 200-meter benchmark remains unchanged as well.

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	12:40.25 ⭐	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	12:40.25	7.40 sec behind	16.51 sec faster
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

Two Days, Two Major Freestyle Benchmarks

The last two workouts have dramatically changed the freestyle picture.

Event	Previous Benchmark	New Benchmark	Improvement
1500M Freestyle	25:46.0	24:21.26	1:24.74 faster
800M Freestyle	13:30.2	12:40.25	49.95 sec faster

Yesterday’s 1500 put my training performance clearly ahead of the 2025 bronze and fourth-place standards. Today’s 800 moved that event past the 2025 fourth-place benchmark and within 7.4 seconds of bronze.

61 Days to Go

There are still 61 days until the Huntsman World Senior Games, so these training results are not predictions of race-day placement. The 2026 field may be faster or slower than the 2025 field, and training swims are not the same as tapered competition performances.

What the benchmarks do provide is an objective way to measure progress.

At this point, the 1500-meter freestyle has moved beyond last year’s bronze standard, the 800-meter freestyle is within 7.4 seconds of bronze, the 200-meter breaststroke remains only 1.38 seconds from the 2025 bronze time, and the 100-meter breaststroke remains within 4.6 seconds of fourth place.

The encouraging part is that all four events are now within meaningful range of the 2025 competitive benchmarks, with another two months of training still remaining.

Today’s headline: 800 meters in 12:40.25 — a new training best, faster than the 2025 fourth-place Huntsman time and only 7.4 seconds from last year’s bronze.