I'm not much of a stroke swimmer...that is to say my workouts are generally pretty much just various sets of crawl stroke...at which I'm very strong...for longer open water swims. Now and then I'd throw in a set of other strokes just to break up the monotony. I can swim the other strokes good enough...endurance-wise...except for BF. It was, and is, always difficult for me to make it just 50m BF. I'd have to rest at each wall. And it seemed that I couldn't just "slow down" to pace myself. It was like I'd have to swim the BF all-out or drown. But a year or so ago, for some reason, I began ending all my workouts with a 400 IM (scm). Slowly but surely my BF got better. I started to notice that I could actually slow down some. Still, I'd usually have to rest on one wall, or go into the modified BF with a breaststroke kick in the last 50. But finally...yesterday I did the whole 100 using the correct BF kick without resting at the wall, and was able to swim the entire 400 IM without stopping. We won't discuss time.
Dan
Yup. That's a close second in my books in terms of fun. And, while a 400 IM always hurts, I have done some near-perfectly executed 200 flys where I got into the right rhythm and felt smooth the whole way. Of course, I've also had most of my 200 flys where the piano and monkey jump on my back right around the 160 yard/meter mark.
Yes. When done poorly, the 200 LCM fly is the only event where I can seriously doubt my ability to finish the race legally. When paced correctly it can be sublime.
The original post seems to be as much about training for the 400 IM as race strategy. I agree that you need to be able to cruise butterfly; you'll never win a 400 IM on the strength of the butterfly leg but you can easily lose it there if you go too hard. Beyond that, I would spend my time on developing a breaststroke (the portion of the IM that takes the longest) and, more generally, swimming endurance.
Yup. That's a close second in my books in terms of fun. And, while a 400 IM always hurts, I have done some near-perfectly executed 200 flys where I got into the right rhythm and felt smooth the whole way. Of course, I've also had most of my 200 flys where the piano and monkey jump on my back right around the 160 yard/meter mark.
Yes. When done poorly, the 200 LCM fly is the only event where I can seriously doubt my ability to finish the race legally. When paced correctly it can be sublime.
The original post seems to be as much about training for the 400 IM as race strategy. I agree that you need to be able to cruise butterfly; you'll never win a 400 IM on the strength of the butterfly leg but you can easily lose it there if you go too hard. Beyond that, I would spend my time on developing a breaststroke (the portion of the IM that takes the longest) and, more generally, swimming endurance.
