OK, Forumites, I need help figuring this out... :help:
I am a breaststroker, for sure; definitely best at the 50. It goes downhill from there, according to how my times fall on the (outdated, I know) 2010 Motivational Times Charts. Since I have always been a speedster in general (definitely a rabbit, rather than a truck), I thought of myself as a sprinter. And, my 50's in all strokes rank higher than my 100's and 200's.
BUT, my coach declared me a true distance swimmer, after I swam my 2,000 fly (and felt better at the end than at the beginning), negative split my back-to-back 3k and 1k open water swims, and negative split my 400m free and 800m free races on my first attempt. He also whips me on the first half of our training sessions, but I get stronger and start negative splitting during the second half of our 4,000 yard workouts.
More evidence: According to the Motivational Times Chart, I rank highest in the 50 and 1650 freestyle and poorest in the 100 and 200.
So, what gives? I'm best at the extremes, but, even when I correctly split my 100's and 200's, they :censor:. Any ideas as to why this is and whether I am truly a sprinter or distance swimmer? :dunno:
My guess is that you're probably evenly split between slow and fast twitch muscle fibers (most people are if I remember correctly), but that you're better conditioned for the two extremes.
I have some other suspicions based on my running experience... those long-sprint to middle-distance races are extremely difficult to train for: 400, 800, 1600-meter runs (I think of the 200s and 400 IM in this vein, but there are a lot of similarities between the 400-m run and the 100-m swims too); and yet, if you take even a short break or do a week of EZ running, they are the first distances to suffer. Not so with endurance events (your 10K to marathon pace is not going to suffer from a week or two of easier running, if anything your race times might improve as you get that spring back in your step)... or with pure sprints, where muscle memory and sheer turnover matter more.
If I remember correctly from reading about this when I was planning my training for running, the middle distance events require you to push your lactate threshold ever closer to your VO2Max... that requires a lot of physical discomfort (400-m and 800-m repeats at 1600-m pace in running; 400-m repeats are so much nicer at the 10K pace!). Don't know if this makes any sense.
My guess is that you're probably evenly split between slow and fast twitch muscle fibers (most people are if I remember correctly), but that you're better conditioned for the two extremes.
I have some other suspicions based on my running experience... those long-sprint to middle-distance races are extremely difficult to train for: 400, 800, 1600-meter runs (I think of the 200s and 400 IM in this vein, but there are a lot of similarities between the 400-m run and the 100-m swims too); and yet, if you take even a short break or do a week of EZ running, they are the first distances to suffer. Not so with endurance events (your 10K to marathon pace is not going to suffer from a week or two of easier running, if anything your race times might improve as you get that spring back in your step)... or with pure sprints, where muscle memory and sheer turnover matter more.
If I remember correctly from reading about this when I was planning my training for running, the middle distance events require you to push your lactate threshold ever closer to your VO2Max... that requires a lot of physical discomfort (400-m and 800-m repeats at 1600-m pace in running; 400-m repeats are so much nicer at the 10K pace!). Don't know if this makes any sense.
