Swimming Workouts

I have no idea how to put together a good running workout. People talk about "tempo runs," "hill repeats," "sets of 800s," and I'm all like "I'm just gonna go do some random miles, ok?" It's not the most interesting or productive way of going about my training, but I do it because I'm still inexperienced.

It hit me yesterday that some people swim this way! New flash: no one wants to just do laps for an hour straight. I'd try to drown myself. Sooooo: I think I might start a new page on the blog for swim sets so that you guys can get some fresh ideas. I'll try to post my own workouts to keep myself honest, and you can adapt them to your own skill level and time commitment. If anyone is interested in starting a swimming routine (DO IT!) I can post some basic workouts, too.

Yes, you. Get in the pool. 

To start you off, here's something similar to what I did the other night with B. Do these at your own pace - I didn't include times.

Warm up:    4x150 choice (I do mostly freestyle)
                   4x50 freestyle - descend (1st 50 is slowest, 4th 50 is fastest)
Kick:           5x100 kick - odd flutter, even choice (I do breaststroke kick)
Main set:     2 times through (first time through freestyle, second time stroke/choice):
                       2x100 drill
                       2x75 kick, drill, swim by 25
                       2x50 choice - HARD
                       1x50 easy freestyle 
Cool down:  200 easy choice

Total:  2500 yards (or meters, depending on your pool)

Good luck! We didn't get through all of it..it was a little overambitious for our first time back. We'll get there soon, though! We've been calling ourselves "swammers" (like the past tense of swimmers, get it? har har) and we're finally ready to commit some serious hours to the pool. There's nothing like staring at that black line :)

Would a new page on the blog be helpful for you?
Do you ever schedule "workouts" for your running?  If so, have any tips?