100 freestyle race strategy advice

Having benefitted tremendously from advice gleaned from this forum on how to swim the 200 butterfly, and having no intention of doing the 200 butterfly again for at least a year, I would now like to switch my request for strategic advice to the next event I am hoping to swim well: the 100 yard freestyle. Over the years, I have had several coaches tell me several different things about how to race this distance, and I would like to hear what my fellow masters have found to work the best. Here are the two main strategies I've been given: Strategy #1: The Don't Die Strategy Swim the first 50 as fast as you possibly can while staying smooth and under control; this means it's a little less frenetic and exhausting than an all out 50 sprint. Swim the 3rd 25 length long and smooth, resting ever so slightly. Make sure to stretch your stroke. As you approach the final turn, pick up the pace to full sprint, do a very fast turn, and continue sprinting all out till you finish. Strategy #2: The Don't Save Anything Strategy This one is a little easier to remember: just sprint the whole thing as fast as you possibly can from the get go. The rationale here is that even if you die on the final length, the time you save by sprinting early will more than make up for the time you lose by dying late. The advocate of this strategy suggests that when you die, you feel like you're swimming in molasses, but the truth is, you don't really slow down as much as you feel you're slowing down, especially on a distance as "short" as a 100. One of the good things about the 200 fly is that if you can finish that, the pain of a garden variety 100 free seems relatively less intimidating. Still, I want to do my best time, and all considerations of pain notwithstanding, does strategy #2 really work better than strategy #1? Or is some amalgam of the two the way to go--i.e., do strategy #1 without "resting" on the third length? Final question: I feel I am in pretty good aerobic shape now, with my times in distances of 200 and greater the best they've ever been. My 25s and 50s, however, have noticeably slowed. The 100s are still pretty good--this year's best 100 free of 52.5 is not that far off last year's best of 52.09, whereas this year's 100 fly of 59.59 is better than last year's best of 1:00.20. I suspect that my "slow twitch" muscles are much better trained now than my "fast twitch" muscles (and at 49, I also suspect that the latter are atrophying faster than the former.) Our next meet is in about 4 weeks. Should I start doing more sprint training at this point in the season, and if so, how much? And would it make sense to do weight lifting now (I've let this slack off during the hard swimming phase of the season.) Thanks as always for your advice, fellow swimmers. I truly appreciate it.
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  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Jim, Not getting as much feedback here, are you? From what I remember, and it's been a while since I've swum a 100 free, I have subscribed to your scenario #2; go like heck and hope for the best at the end. I do remember that it really hurts, but in a different way than the 200 fly. I've always equated freestyle swims with an equivalent distance in track. Basically, track distances of 4X the swimming distance are equal in effort (and, coincidentally in the time it takes for the race). A 50 free, where the top sprinters are around a 20.0 is equal to a 200 dash. If you consider the 100 free in this light, I don't think you see track guys sprinting a 400. Therefore, it might not be correct to sprint the 100 free (if my supposition relating swimming to track distances makes sense).
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  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Jim, Not getting as much feedback here, are you? From what I remember, and it's been a while since I've swum a 100 free, I have subscribed to your scenario #2; go like heck and hope for the best at the end. I do remember that it really hurts, but in a different way than the 200 fly. I've always equated freestyle swims with an equivalent distance in track. Basically, track distances of 4X the swimming distance are equal in effort (and, coincidentally in the time it takes for the race). A 50 free, where the top sprinters are around a 20.0 is equal to a 200 dash. If you consider the 100 free in this light, I don't think you see track guys sprinting a 400. Therefore, it might not be correct to sprint the 100 free (if my supposition relating swimming to track distances makes sense).
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