My best swimming season ever has just ended up, but a special extension will keep me committed for the entire summer: the European Master Championships, scheduled in September.

While during winter I’m especially focused on the short distances, because that’s where I gain my highest scores, now I’m having the chance to experience a distance training for three months. That’s still the situation I enjoy the most: long strokes, full awareness of your body and control over your energies…

Besides swimming for miles and miles, I’m going to watch this fantastic performance by Alessia Filippi regularly, as a source of tips and inspiration.

Needless to say, though she’s a woman, Alessia swims the 800 freestyle in about two minutes less than me! But let’s assume I’ve got wider margins of improvement… 

My irreplaceable coach Enrico will surely lead me across these next three months, but meanwhile I couldn’t resist to snoop around for some training programs online. Here’s the core part of the most interesting I’ve found so far:

- 10×100, descending 1-8 from 75% effort to 90% effort, recover/easy swim on 9 and 10;

- 1×800, negative split second 400;

- 6×100, descending 1-4 from 75% effort to 90% effort, recover/easy swim on 5 and 6;

- 1×400, negative split second 200.

The complete workout is available here, together with other challenging ones you can find through this engine (my settings: Masters Level 3, Distance Freestyle).