I signed up for the 200 fly next Sunday and am wondering if anyone has some advice on how to swim this. My twin brother told me he swam it in college, and by the last length, he felt he was actually moving backwards. I'd like to avoid that if at all possible.
To get into shape for this, I've been doing a lot of 25's fly with 10-15 seconds rest. I started doing 8 at a time and have worked my way up to 40. Yesterday, I did 20 x 25s then 10 x 50 on a minute.
Questions:
Pacing--reason would say to go out slow so you have something left for the second hundred, but I wonder if this is right. After all, you get tired either way, so maybe going out reasonably fast means you will end up with a better time (albeit a greater feeling of misery on the last length or two.) I'm not talking a sprint pace, but a reasonably fast clip. Or is this a recipe for disaster?
Stroke mechanics--does the fly need to be modified for a 200--i.e., not pulling all the way through, gliding longer, hand entry a bit wider than usual, etc. I've read that some people can swim a continuous mile butterfly, and I wonder if they are swimming the same stroke I do. It's hard to imagine...
I have only swum the 200 fly once--last year--and got a 2:30 on it. My 100 fly has improved this year (a 59.59 , the first time I've broken a minute since high school 31 years ago), and I am in better overall shape this year, so I am hoping to lower the 2:30 to at least a 2:25 (which would give me the Y age group record in our league.) Any advice from 200 flier veterans would be truly appeciated.
Thanks in advance for your words of wisdom.
Parents
Former Member
I aspire to be a 200 flyer. My goal is to learn the stroke well enough that I can go 200 yards without needing the EMTs to get me out of the water at the end. The cold reality is that I rarely break 3:00, and I have to ruthlessly hold myself back the 1st half of the race to finish at all. That is all a long winded way of saying I am a mere mortal who cannot rely on genetics or killer conditioning to power through a 200; I have to rely on cunning and guile to fool my body into completing a 200.
1st concept: Oxygen Management
I have finished a 200 fly breathing every other stroke, and oxygen debt was the key limiting factor. But, then I watched carefully the older (60+) swimmers who did the 200 fly at Nationals. Every one of them was breathing more often than that. I think one key to the 200 may be finding a way to keep your hips up and your stroke mechanics together while breathing more often than every other stroke. In a similar vein, a teammate recommended to me long, slow turns at every wall. (She said people have accused her of taking a cigarette break on her turns in the 200.) It was a life saver for me. Take a good, legal two hand touch, then grab the gutter (even if it is several inches higher that the water level), and take two full breaths while you slowly swing your legs under you towards the wall. Will you lose a few tenths at each turn? Sure, but is this a sprint, or are you trying to hang onto the race?
2nd concept: Short Axis Pulse (SAP)
Emmett Hines has written an excellent article about using an SAP to generate propulsion in the fly. (You can find it at the H2Ouston Swims web site, in the articles tab, under the title "Slip Slid'n' Away") I am currently trying to rebuild my fly around an SAP technique using Total Immersion concepts. I have not tried it out yet in competition, but I am able to go much longer fly distances in practice with less strain than before. My goal is to build a fly that I could do continuously without having to stop, much in the same way most USMS swimmers can do freestyle.
3rd concept: How Much Fly in Workout
Before swimming my most successful 200 fly in competition, I did build myself up for it doing 200 fly in practice. (First I would do a 200 straight through, then a series of broken 200's in the following sequence: 125-75, 100-50-50, 50-50-50-25-25.) Obviously, there was some conditioning going on there, but I was focusing on getting myself to throttle down, as it were, to a 200 pace, and building my confidence in my ability to go 200. After that, I not only expected to finish the 200, I expected it would not be much harder than a 200 free. Well, I did finish, but the piano still landed on my back the last 50. Doing significant fly distance in practice is one school of thought. Another school of thought is doing less fly in workout, but doing it all very well. This is the TI argument that doing too much "butter-struggle" only trains you to struggle through fly in your races. Thus, the theory holds that you should only do as much fly as you can do well so you only practice good mechanics. Get your conditioning from other sets in the workout. I am tending to follow the latter theory lately.
These are all some random thoughts. If you are in your 20's, and you can power through a 200 fly, and you are trying to formulate a pacing strategy not much different from your 200 free strategy...Good Luck me boy. You're a better swimmer than I, and you need no advice from me. But, if like me merely finishing a 200 fly is not a trivial exercise, I hope I have given you some food for thought.
Matt
I aspire to be a 200 flyer. My goal is to learn the stroke well enough that I can go 200 yards without needing the EMTs to get me out of the water at the end. The cold reality is that I rarely break 3:00, and I have to ruthlessly hold myself back the 1st half of the race to finish at all. That is all a long winded way of saying I am a mere mortal who cannot rely on genetics or killer conditioning to power through a 200; I have to rely on cunning and guile to fool my body into completing a 200.
1st concept: Oxygen Management
I have finished a 200 fly breathing every other stroke, and oxygen debt was the key limiting factor. But, then I watched carefully the older (60+) swimmers who did the 200 fly at Nationals. Every one of them was breathing more often than that. I think one key to the 200 may be finding a way to keep your hips up and your stroke mechanics together while breathing more often than every other stroke. In a similar vein, a teammate recommended to me long, slow turns at every wall. (She said people have accused her of taking a cigarette break on her turns in the 200.) It was a life saver for me. Take a good, legal two hand touch, then grab the gutter (even if it is several inches higher that the water level), and take two full breaths while you slowly swing your legs under you towards the wall. Will you lose a few tenths at each turn? Sure, but is this a sprint, or are you trying to hang onto the race?
2nd concept: Short Axis Pulse (SAP)
Emmett Hines has written an excellent article about using an SAP to generate propulsion in the fly. (You can find it at the H2Ouston Swims web site, in the articles tab, under the title "Slip Slid'n' Away") I am currently trying to rebuild my fly around an SAP technique using Total Immersion concepts. I have not tried it out yet in competition, but I am able to go much longer fly distances in practice with less strain than before. My goal is to build a fly that I could do continuously without having to stop, much in the same way most USMS swimmers can do freestyle.
3rd concept: How Much Fly in Workout
Before swimming my most successful 200 fly in competition, I did build myself up for it doing 200 fly in practice. (First I would do a 200 straight through, then a series of broken 200's in the following sequence: 125-75, 100-50-50, 50-50-50-25-25.) Obviously, there was some conditioning going on there, but I was focusing on getting myself to throttle down, as it were, to a 200 pace, and building my confidence in my ability to go 200. After that, I not only expected to finish the 200, I expected it would not be much harder than a 200 free. Well, I did finish, but the piano still landed on my back the last 50. Doing significant fly distance in practice is one school of thought. Another school of thought is doing less fly in workout, but doing it all very well. This is the TI argument that doing too much "butter-struggle" only trains you to struggle through fly in your races. Thus, the theory holds that you should only do as much fly as you can do well so you only practice good mechanics. Get your conditioning from other sets in the workout. I am tending to follow the latter theory lately.
These are all some random thoughts. If you are in your 20's, and you can power through a 200 fly, and you are trying to formulate a pacing strategy not much different from your 200 free strategy...Good Luck me boy. You're a better swimmer than I, and you need no advice from me. But, if like me merely finishing a 200 fly is not a trivial exercise, I hope I have given you some food for thought.
Matt
