As said before, this site needs a "like" or "favorite" button. My vote is the 200 fly both for pain and fear. The anxiety behind the blocks for any of the three can be exhausting. There is no finding your happy place.
This thread has been a good read.
When I swim fly, it always has to be fast to maintain momentum and keep my arms above the surface of the water. It requires such massive amounts of energy that it exhausts me after 50 m.
Swimming fly fast is like that. Swimming fly far is a different problem.
Swimming a 200 fly -- or a 1650 fly for that matter, I've done both -- is a parlor trick. As long as you're content to swim it not too terribly fast, you can finish it legally, gracefully, and comfortably. I'm convinced that most masters swimmers, which is to say, nearly all masters swimmers, could swim a 200 fly quite easily, if they learned the trick.
Here's a clue
Here's another (admittedly, not a parlor trick!)
Swimming freestyle fast is not the same thing as swimming freestyle far. Also fly.
Right now? Breaststroke. Ever since I strained my MCL back in the spring, I'm really tentative with the kick. I did all the PT and strengthening stuff, but I don't think there's anything on land that really corresponds to the motion you get on the kick.
The event that frustrates me the most is the 200 free for the same reasons as pwb's.
Of the three choices, I would least like to do the 200 fly but as Swimosaur says, as long as I don't have to try to swim it fast.
in college dual meets i was "allowed" do to the trio of hell
1000
200 fly
500
all in what...3hrs
seems like a lot of beer always followed that night....for the carbs...for the carbs!!!
My college coach had a meeting before a dual meet and asked everyone to think of a number between 1 and 10,000. I was the second person he asked for the number and when I told him, he exclaimed that I had guessed it exactly. My prize was swimming the 1,000 - 200 fly and 500.
I never did figure out what I did to deserve that - and he never told me.
My college coach had a meeting before a dual meet and asked everyone to think of a number between 1 and 10,000. I was the second person he asked for the number and when I told him, he exclaimed that I had guessed it exactly. My prize was swimming the 1,000 - 200 fly and 500.
I never did figure out what I did to deserve that - and he never told me. I did that combo of events enough times that I eventually figured out the secret of how to swim it.
The hardest meet I ever did back in the day (for three years in a row) was one that was called an iron man meet. 400 IM, 200 fly, 200 back, 200 ***, 200 free, and 500 free, in that order. It was terrible, and by the time I got to the 200 and 500 free, I was so dead that my times were about what I'd swum when I was 12.
Now that I'm training for the 200 fly and 400 IM after a many year hiatus from those events, it doesn't sound *quite* as horrifying, but still, that's a meet I could only do spread out over a weekend, not spread out over ~4 hours like back then.
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We have an animal meet every year with either the 200 IM,100 fly and 500 free,or the 400 IM,200 fly and 1000 free.I entered the longer events a few years ago.There was about 10 min rest between events as I recall,but it may have been a little longer. I swam the 400 IM to finish and felt tired but OK after it.I was most afraid of the 200 fly so I went out very slowly,but as I got into a rhythm I felt stronger and actually negative split.I figured the 1000 would be OK as I envisioned it as an easy swim.I hadn't counted on how much the fly took out of me and by the 150 I was noticing getting my arms out of the water was getting harder with each stroke.I have no plans to enter that meet again any time soon.
We have an animal meet every year with either the 200 IM,100 fly and 500 free,or the 400 IM,200 fly and 1000 free.I entered the longer events a few years ago.There was about 10 min rest between events as I recall,but it may have been a little longer. I swam the 400 IM to finish and felt tired but OK after it.I was most afraid of the 200 fly so I went out very slowly,but as I got into a rhythm I felt stronger and actually negative split.I figured the 1000 would be OK as I envisioned it as an easy swim.I hadn't counted on how much the fly took out of me and by the 150 I was noticing getting my arms out of the water was getting harder with each stroke.I have no plans to enter that meet again any time soon.
That meet also offers the 50 fly-100 IM-200 free grouping for the fearful. A couple years ago, there was a LCM pentathlon meet where jaadams1 and I both entered the long distance group of events (200 of each stroke and the 400 IM). It was a small meet and the breaks between events were short. "Those two are really dumb." - possibly said by Allen Stark while we were swimming
My top 3 most feared events would be:
200 free - ain't nobody know how to swim this godforsaken mess that can't decide if it's a sprint or a mid-distance race. SCY, SCM or LCM -- no matter which way you cut it, this race is hard, unfathomable and unbeatable.
50 free - screw up the start, turn, breakout, or, heck, even breathe one too many times and your race is shot. But, hey, even if you remove the turn in long course, this event also sucks as, after about the 30 meter mark, when you've taken your allotted one breath, your vision starts to fade into the tunnel and, in the midst of your hypoxic haze, you swear you start talking with ghosts of swimmers past.
200 long course *** stroke - If I can't swim at least 60% of my breaststroke via underwater pullouts, there's gonna be ugliness.
I laughed SO hard at this, truer words have never been spoken!! I do like the 200 *** though, it's fun and mental game ;)
