400 IM

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