How do you swim a 200 yard free?

You need to breathe to run all the 4 x 25. I go 85 - 90 - 95 & all out the last 25.

Lots of good advice here. I think everyone can give more specific advse once you post your 100 and 500 times (with splits if possible). Good luck on your quest for the record. My 100 free time is a 57.94 with a split of 26.66 My best 500 free time is a 6:08, but the splits weren't taken at the meet lol, instead I have the splits from last season where I went a 6:11.95 with Laps 30.79 ,34.60 ,37.33 ,37.82 ,38.13 ,38.78 ,39.03, 39.26, 39.26, 36.95 I also have the splits from a 200 free where I went a 2:15.26 Laps 29.84, 33.81, 36.03, 35.58

There are different strategies for swimming this race in HS duel meets where you are competing for points, as opposed to a meet where you are competing for times and for qualifying. In duel HS meets, I always tried to know who i was swimming against in the 200 and what else i would be swimming and expecting in the meet. The 200 was early in the meet event sequence, so strategy was important. Our coach tracked opponent times from other HS meets and in some cases we scouted the meets to get times. Knowing the opponents times indicated what you were up against. So for instance, if the opponent takes off like a bat, but has slower times than you, you know not to let the "hare" drag you out too fast -- knowing times, you can plan and know that you will catch them on the back end. Also, if you will be swimming the 500 about 20 - 30 min. later and maybe still a relay or two, all in about 1.5 hours, you might want to just swim the 200 to get your place/points and save it for your next races. In a duel meet 200 you can follow a strategy and even change the strategy according to conditions. The startegy for swimming against time is to work out the splits you need as described previously and then work on technique and conditioning to be able to reach and hold them. In HS swimming (in my experience) it was hard to be a distance swimmer and lower times a great deal during the meet season. Between practicing hard and 1 or 2 meets a week, plus all the other stuff going on, your body, which is still growing/developing, can't get enough rest to make the big adaptations that come from the training until you rest it. You can easily "plateau" and think you aren't improving, become discouraged, etc. If you've been training hard and eating right, times may drop substantially at the end of the season when the duel meets are over and you can taper, get rest, and let the adaptations resulting from training occur and pay-off. Adaptations from training occur when you rest after you train. No rest, no adaptation. So as you swim your 200s this year focusing on the 1:55 goal, don't get discouraged if improvement doesn't seem contiuous or proportional to the work you are putting in, and you don't reach the goal before the end of the duel meets. At your age and current times, the taper can produce huge time drops in a 200, provided you've worked to improve your technique and worked hard in your training sets. Good luck and most importantly enjoy the journey.

Now you need to find another 5s in the 200. Given your target of 1:55 = 115s, according to Nessel's racing formula, 4X + 6.2 = 115 => X=27.2, so you need a 25.2 for your best-effort 50. We haven't seen you swim, but I'd mention that a lot of HS swimmers focus too much on propulsion (trying to go faster) and not enough on drag (not doing things that slow you down). If breathing is slowing you down, instead of breathing less, learn how to breathe so it does not slow you down. Watch this video: Michael Phelps freestyle multi angle camera - YouTube from about :02 - :08 and again from :20 - :25 and again from :45 - :58. Drill that streamline into your head. I hope you get your name on the record board. Post a pic if you do. Thanks for all your advise! I truly think I'm very capable of going a 25 on a 50. I'll take your advise and focus on less drag, but for breathing I don't know if its a problem or not. Just most coaches have taught me less breathes = more aerodynamic = less time. And for that record board pic, we don't even have a pool haha, but then we're still the fastest high school boy's team in the city! Funny how that works huh :)

Just most coaches have taught me less breathes = more aerodynamic = less time. They're right. The fastest 50 specialist often don't breathe at all. If they do, it's only a couple. Head position has a lot to do with remaining in the ideal position without a negative impact on speed. If you work on this particular aspect (stealthy head position), it's very possible to breath all you want and still go just as fast. Jason Lezak can be seen breathing every stroke while anchoring one of the most exciting relays ever. Not saying you should copy his style, just pointing out that breathing doesn't necessarily slow someone down. 4x100M freestyle relay Jason Lezak's amazing finish - YouTube

I just swam a 200M free earlier this month, my splits: 32.44 1:07.61(35.17) 1:43.31(35.70) 2:17.32(34.01) The guy next to me was: 32.63 1:07.17(34.54) 1:41.77(34.60) 2:17.56(35.79) You can see there were different approaches to the race. I knew I had more in me on the 2nd & 3rd 50, but I also had a more important race later. If your last 50 is 1.5 sec faster than the 3rd, somethings not right. You can check out a bunch of splits on the USMS competition tab - meet results database - event ranking. But also watch for things that don't look right.

I'll concur with Kirk on breathing. Watch videos of Phelps and Lochte swimming this and I think you'll see them breathe every 2 practically the entire race. The key place where you gotta train yourself NOT to breathe is the first stroke off the turn; breathing right off the wall can really disrupt the flow and the speed created by a strong pushoff and streamline. As far as pacing the 200, I particularly like to think about building my legs/kick gradually throughout the race, about keeping my stroke length as long as possible for the first 100 and then build the stroke rate over the last 100. If you are a good dolphin kicker, learn to build that in as part of each underwater pushoff.

My 50 free time is a 26.56 :) That will be tough to be a 1:55 with a 26.5 as a best 50 time. This is how I split my 200 Free at Nationals last spring. Yeah, it's not the best splitting there, and I went out too fast considering the conditioning I was in prior to the meet. 25.67 / 28.76 (54.4) / 30.17 / 30.33 (1:00.5) = 1:54.93 You've got to have the right mix of speed and pacing in the 200. It's tough because you can't go out too slow because you just won't be able to come back fast enough to make up for it, but also the reverse...if you go out too fast (like my above splits), you don't have enough left on the back half. It's a very tough race to get perfect.

The 200 hurts. A lot (in almost every stroke). Its like a long sprint to some of us.

Definitely read through the suggestions above, excellent information. :) 26.56 - 50 2:12 - 200 Just curious, what's your 500?