The old discussion format left dangling an interesting topic suggested by Paul Smith in the rather excellent Distance vs Sprint thread started by Jim Thornton. The topic being that of the mental side of training/competition.
My own selfish interest in this area would be on the mental preparation for 50yds/m competition. Obviously there is not much time to do a great amount of thinking during this event (one of the benefits of 50's) but you need to go into the race with some limited number of important thoughts to concentrate on while swimming. Kind of like 'swing thoughts' in golf (my cross over training sport). As in golf, muscle memory will play a large part in not having to think about everything involved.
I wonder if Paul or any others would care to share what those few key race thoughts might be, from the start, swim and turn through to the finish? And would there be any mental aspects to training for a 50 that might be different from distance training?
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Former Member
You mentioned the 200 IM, so I will comment on that event. Most important in the 200 IM is to make sure that you swim the fly leg easy (or at least as easy as you can), or you will be all wiped out for the rest of the race.
What you do after the fly leg depends on your strengths and weaknesses. My best strokes are the fly and the breaststroke. Even though butterfly is one of my best strokes, I still try to swim the fly leg easy. Backstroke is my worst stroke, so I use the backstroke leg to kind of recover from the fly and get ready for the breaststroke. I really BLAST the breaststroke - if I don't have a half-way decent lead at the end of the breaststroke, I lose. Then I try to do my best in the freestyle - if possible I try to blast the free at the end.
The IM is an interesting event imho as everybody has different strengths and weaknesses, so the lead can change, sometimes drastically, during a race.
.
You mentioned the 200 IM, so I will comment on that event. Most important in the 200 IM is to make sure that you swim the fly leg easy (or at least as easy as you can), or you will be all wiped out for the rest of the race.
What you do after the fly leg depends on your strengths and weaknesses. My best strokes are the fly and the breaststroke. Even though butterfly is one of my best strokes, I still try to swim the fly leg easy. Backstroke is my worst stroke, so I use the backstroke leg to kind of recover from the fly and get ready for the breaststroke. I really BLAST the breaststroke - if I don't have a half-way decent lead at the end of the breaststroke, I lose. Then I try to do my best in the freestyle - if possible I try to blast the free at the end.
The IM is an interesting event imho as everybody has different strengths and weaknesses, so the lead can change, sometimes drastically, during a race.
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