Road to Huntsman: 58 Days Out — Building Endurance Without Building Volume

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.