September 27, 2026 – 2,000 Meters of Controlled Swimming and 10 Days to Huntsman

Today’s swim continued the gradual reduction in training volume as September comes to an end. After swimming 2,200 meters yesterday, I came back with an even shorter 2,000-meter session today.

This wasn’t designed as a race-distance test or a particularly hard workout. Instead, most of the session was continuous swimming while alternating freestyle and breaststroke. With only 10 days remaining until my first event at the Huntsman World Senior Games, the objective was simply to swim, maintain some endurance, and continue bringing the overall workload down.

Today’s Workout

Total Distance	2,000 m
Duration	36:08
Average Pace	1:49/100 m
Normalized Pace	1:48/100 m
Training Stress	42 sTSS
Intensity Factor	0.89
Average Heart Rate	136 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate	159 bpm
Calories	547

Compared with yesterday’s 2,200 meters, 52 sTSS and 0.94 IF, today’s 2,000 meters produced only 42 sTSS at an IF of 0.89. That is exactly the direction I want the overall training load moving during the taper.

A Simple Two-Set Workout

The FORM data shows that today’s workout was unusually simple. Rather than a collection of short intervals, almost the entire swim consisted of one long continuous set followed by a short finishing set.

Set	Distance	Structure
1	1,700 m	850 FR / 850 BR
2	300 m	150 FR / 150 BR

The opening set was 1,700 meters continuous, alternating between freestyle and breaststroke. It worked out to exactly 850 meters of each stroke. After a short break of approximately 46 seconds, I finished with another 300 meters—again evenly divided between freestyle and breaststroke.

That gave me exactly 1,000 meters of freestyle and 1,000 meters of breaststroke for the day.

More About Rhythm Than Speed

Today’s 1:49 average pace shouldn’t be compared directly with the much faster freestyle numbers I’ve been producing recently. Half of today’s distance was breaststroke, and the purpose of the workout was very different from the race-oriented efforts I’ve done during the last several weeks.

The long opening set gave me continuous aerobic work while regularly changing strokes. Freestyle provided the faster portions of the set, while breaststroke naturally brought the overall pace down. That made the session useful without requiring another hard race-distance effort.

At this point, I’m much more interested in maintaining feel for both strokes than trying to prove that I can still produce another personal-best training time.

The Taper Is Becoming More Visible

The progression over the last week makes the taper increasingly obvious.

Date	Distance	sTSS
Sep. 21	2,600 m	65
Sep. 22	2,400 m	58
Sep. 23	2,200 m	51
Sep. 24	No swim	—
Sep. 25	No swim	—
Sep. 26	2,200 m	52
Sep. 27	2,000 m	42

The reduction hasn’t been perfectly linear, nor does it need to be. What matters is the larger trend. Distance and training stress are coming down while I continue getting regular time in the water.

TrainingPeaks Continues to Show Increasing Freshness

TrainingPeaks now shows Fitness at 57, Fatigue at 43 and Form at +16.

I’m not trying to drive those numbers toward a predetermined target. Fitness in TrainingPeaks is a representation of recent accumulated training load, not a direct measurement of how fast I can swim. During a taper, some decline in that number is expected as training volume decreases.

The more important objective is to shed accumulated fatigue without losing the swimming I’ve developed over the last several months.

The Race-Distance Work Is Already in the Bank

One reason I don’t feel any need to turn every remaining workout into a test is that the major race-distance benchmarks are already established.

Event	Best Recent Training Time	Pace
200 m Breaststroke	3:22.52	1:41.26/100 m
800 m Freestyle	12:35.12	1:34.39/100 m
1500 m Freestyle	24:04.84	1:36.32/100 m

Those performances tell me considerably more about the work I’ve done than another hard test this close to the Games would.

10 Days to Huntsman

Tomorrow brings the countdown into single digits for the first time. My four Huntsman events remain spread across three days.

Date	Event
October 7	200 m Breaststroke
October 8	100 m Breaststroke
October 8	800 m Freestyle
October 9	1500 m Freestyle

The 200 breaststroke has already received a very good race-distance effort this week with the 3:22.52 swim on September 23. The 800 and 1500 freestyle also have strong recent benchmarks, while the 100 breaststroke remains the shorter secondary event in the program.

There isn’t much fitness left to build in 10 days. The work from here is mostly about preserving what is already there while allowing the accumulated training load to come down.

Today’s Takeaway

Today’s 2,000 meters was deliberately much less about the stopwatch than many of my recent swims. Half freestyle, half breaststroke, almost entirely continuous, and only 42 sTSS—it fit well with where I am in the taper.

The last several weeks have already provided the fast swims and race-distance benchmarks. Today’s job was simpler: get in the water, swim both strokes, keep the workload controlled, and continue letting the volume come down.

September is almost finished. The heavy training is behind me, the benchmarks are established, and tomorrow the countdown to Huntsman reaches nine days.