I’m competing at the swimgame competition being virtually hosted by Gordo Byrn at EnduranceCorner for the next two weeks (November 23rd to December 6th). There are no restrictions on who can join and there is no requisite speed to swim any of the sets. Slow-squid are on equal footing for point scoring as fast-fish. The pool of competitors is supposed to be twittering their #swimgame progress as they swim into the @EnduranceCorner/swimgame list. I guess the idea is that you get to brag as you go how many points you’re earning, it’s not for accountability purposes as far as I know.

Points are earned each time a swim of 2000m/2200yds is completed and this forms the basis of the competition, swim frequency is goal number one. From there on there are incentives to score more points as the 14 days go by. Points are earned as follows:

1. Your minimum swim distance is 2000m/2200 yds. Each time you hit that distance, give yourself a point.
2. We decided that 4000m/4400 yds merits special recognition, each time you hit that distance in a single workout give yourself a point.
3. Five swims in a week gives you a bonus point, each week.
4. Ten swims across the camp gives you another bonus point.
5. A bonus point for completing each of the following:
   1. 5×400, on 20s rest each swim faster than the one before
   2. 2×1000 on your choice rest, second 1000 faster than the one before
   3. 4000 meters/4400 yards without stopping – all three-stroke breathing
   4. 10×200 group them 4/3/2/1 and speed up for each group. Take no more than 15s rest on each 200.
   5. 8×250 as 25 fly, 225 choice – you decide the rest
   6. 2000 meters/2200 yards with pullbuoy and band. The band should be a rubber band (say an old bike tube, cut the valve out) and tight around the ankles. I recommend this is done continuous, three-stroke breathing. However, if you can’t manage continuous then I think you still deserve the point if you do the distance.
   7. 2000 TT for time – this is a great benchmark to have. You get the point for doing the TT – the split time is for future reference. Compare your speed for the first 200 against your speed for the entire swim – you will learn something about your ability to pace.
   8. 20×100 – take your average 100 split from the 2000 TT and add 10s to it. For example, if you swam 30 minutes for your 2000 then the average per 100 is 1:30. Adding 10 seconds is 1:40. So you would swim 20×100 leaving on 1:40. The goal is to be slightly faster that your TT time – in this case swimming ~1:27. You don’t need to be faster to get the point – I just wanted to give you a target for how to play the effort. You’ll likely start WAY too fast – know that we tend to repeat our patterns in races so this is a good workout to learn how to control yourself early.

I’ll post again in two weeks with my progress on this project.