After a long rest

Nice swimming. If anything, I think this was even better than yesterday.
2:06 in your first ever 2-back. That's faster than my dream goal. Maybe I need to plagiarize a few of your workouts. I' have to modify the intervals of course.

That is a smoking 100 free and very impressive to be so far ahead of where you were earlier this year at Nationals ...

I seem to have strength and speed but no pace endurance right now which is sort of weird based on how we have been training.

I was thinking the same thing looking at your times, but I wouldn't worry about it. I'd actually look at this as a very positive sign:

• First, to have speed under this type of training means you're gonna fly when you rest (though 49.7 is already flying)
• Secondly, like I said yesterday, I'd not be concerned about the 500 and 1000 times done as the last event of each day

I'd say it was a great meet for you.

Originally Posted by Karl_S

Nice swimming. If anything, I think this was even better than yesterday.2:06 in your first ever 2-back. That's faster than my dream goal. Maybe I need to plagiarize a few of your workouts. I' have to modify the intervals of course.

Thanks. I had nothing to go by on the 200 back but was very pleased with the consistency of my splits. In essence they were 30,32,32,32 which was great.Thanks for the kind words and feel Free to use any of the workouts.

Originally Posted by pwb

That is a smoking 100 free and very impressive to be so far ahead of where you were earlier this year at Nationals ...

I think this was my best swim and was a great surprise. I knew I could swim a good 100 but not that good.

Originally Posted by pwb

I was thinking the same thing looking at your times, but I wouldn't worry about it. I'd actually look at this as a very positive sign:

• First, to have speed under this type of training means you're gonna fly when you rest (though 49.7 is already flying)
• Secondly, like I said yesterday, I'd not be concerned about the 500 and 1000 times done as the last event of each day

I'd say it was a great meet for you.

My coach and I had a great talk after the meet and he feels we need to work on pace work more in one of the upcoming cycles. My 1000 splits were pretty consistent where as my 500 was all over the place. I currently dont really have a game plan for swimming the 500, where as the 200 i do. Obviously things can happen in a race that change your game plan but having an approach to the race will help me. The great thing about swimming is there is always something to work on.

For my 500, I take it out at a fairly quick pace, drop off a little bit on the 2nd 100, but at the 250 turn, I try to drop the hammer and go for a negative split or even split race. A lot of people will wait till the last 100 to give it all, but if you've got the training, try to deliver the knockout punch earlier and sometimes you can surprise your competition. I did this in my 1650 around the 800 point as a college freshman (sprinted a 100 in the middle), and caught my neighbor off guard...he wasn't able to respond and actually fell back away from me off pace.

Originally Posted by jaadams1

For my 500, I take it out at a fairly quick pace, drop off a little bit on the 2nd 100, but at the 250 turn, I try to drop the hammer and go for a negative split or even split race. A lot of people will wait till the last 100 to give it all, but if you've got the training, try to deliver the knockout punch earlier and sometimes you can surprise your competition. I did this in my 1650 around the 800 point as a college freshman (sprinted a 100 in the middle), and caught my neighbor off guard...he wasn't able to respond and actually fell back away from me off pace.

The science says an evenly split race is better though. You burn through too much energy building speed in the middle of the race. Appropriate pacing is the topic of Jim's article which should appear in Swimmer soon.

Originally Posted by The Fortress

The science says an evenly split race is better though. You burn through too much energy building speed in the middle of the race. Appropriate pacing is the topic of Jim's article which should appear in Swimmer soon.

This makes total sense to me.

I will work on my endurance pace over the next few months. My coach discussed a few different ways to train for this which also made sense to me. I read someone discussing split sets with x seconds rest at each 100 or 50. My coach also mentioned doing specific sets on a specific pace so that I would get to feel that pace and know where I was, so for example, a 300 at the middle 300 of my desired 500 time(assuming the 1st and last 100's would be quicker in a race scenario). We are also going to start training some of our typical sets(10x300, 6x400 etc) with the tempo trainer(despite that noise driving me nuts).

I am really looking forward to Jim's article.

Originally Posted by The Fortress

The science says an evenly split race is better though. You burn through too much energy building speed in the middle of the race.

I agree. If you're able to just "turn on the jets" in the middle it's either because 1. you saved up a little in the first half or, 2. you're just going to pay for it at the end of the race!

My typical problem during a 500 is falling off a little in the middle of the race. It's physically and mentally challenging to keep the hammer down for the entire race.