One of the big questions I suspect a lot of us have is how to best split the 50s on the 100 as we get a bit older. Youngsters may be able to more or less all-out sprint the whole thing, but I find that if I go too fast upfront, I die so horribly on the second half, that it proves self-defeating. But if I go too slow at the outset, I can't make up the hole I've dug for myself.
I have a teammate named Ronald, and we both swam last April at Y Masters Nationals. In a sense, we each adopted opposite strategies, and in this one race, at least, it seemed that the "don't go out too fast" strategy prevailed.
If anyone is interested, please take a look at the following "analysis" of our respective races and let me know what your opinions are about how we might each go faster:
100 Freestyle analysis from Ft. Lauderdale
7 Jacobs, Ronald 38 South Hills-PA vs. 7 Thornton, James 49 South Hills-PA
(For some reason, I can't get the following to break out in a table format, but the numbers are for Ronald first then Jim then the Difference in Ronald & Jim's 50 splits in parentheses. The difference for each swimmer's own first and second 50s are in brackets.)
Ron Jim Difference between Ron and Jim
25.69 24.89 (-.80) 1st 50
26.38 27.57 (+1.19) 2nd 50
52.07 52.46 (+.39) total time
* difference between 1st & 2nd 50 splits
Possible conclusion: Jim went out too fast and could have done a better overall time by easing up slightly on the first half; the 2.68 second differential indicates some heavy duty dying went on in the second half
Possible alternative conclusion: Ronald went out too slow and could have broken 52 with more upfront effort; a .69 second differential indicates he essentially negative split this 100, given that there is no dive for the second 50
Bill White's 100 split differential analysis of elite swimmers (a couple posts ago) found:
The average for the top 8 finishers is 1.91 seconds difference between first and second 50.
Smallest difference 1.27 secs (5th place), largest difference 2.75 secs (3rd place)
Dirf, on the other hand, made an excellent point:
Another difference is more individual. aptitude toward sprinting, middle distance or endurance (and overall conditioning) impacts how long someone can hold a steady pace.
I would like to propose a couple other items to consider:
1) the world's fastest swimmers don't actually spend nearly as much total time doing a 100 free as we lumpenproletarians. The record is around 43, right? My best time is a low 52, which means I have 9 more seconds of effort at the end of a race than Anthony Ervin. As all of us have experienced, the piano hits towards the end, so being able to get the race over with quickly, it would seem to me, would have a huge benefit vis a vis the time spent in The Death Zone.
2) I am personally in the best distance shape of my life right now, and I can hold (for me at least) a brisk aerobic pace in the 500. However, when I up the speed to depend more on my sprinting "fast twitch" muscles, the aerobic conditioning doesn't seem to make all that much difference. At Nationals in Cleveland, for instance, I placed 3rd in the 200 and 400 m freestyles in my age group. After these swims, I was tired but hardly exhausted. In the 50, I got 4th place, and in the 100 I got 5th place. After both these relatively short races, I was totally spent to the point of having trouble exiting the pool! My suspicion is that the fast twitch and slow twitch energy systems are entirely different, and it's possible to train one better than the other. Being "in shape", in other words, is not an all-encompassing term. You can be in distance shape, and you can be in sprinting shape, and--conceivably--in both types of shape, though I find it difficult to achieve this myself.
There is also ones genetic predisposition, of course, to being more sprint or distance oriented. When all this is factored in, I would hypothesize that distance swimmers will have a better 100 time by keeping the first and second 50s closer in time; and that sprinters will do better by going all out and trying to hold on.
Perhaps this might make for an interesting poll topic to test it out amongst our ranks?
Something like this:
first identify yourself as a distance swimmer or a sprinter
then there would be two polls--one for each of the above--saying something like:
in my best 100 time recently, the split difference between my first and second 50 was:
A) less than 1 second
B) between 1 and 2 seconds
C) between 2 and 3 seconds
D) over 3 seconds
Then we could look at the respective graphs to see if, in fact, there's any rhyme or reason to any differences.
What do you think, Jim M?
Bill White's 100 split differential analysis of elite swimmers (a couple posts ago) found:
The average for the top 8 finishers is 1.91 seconds difference between first and second 50.
Smallest difference 1.27 secs (5th place), largest difference 2.75 secs (3rd place)
Dirf, on the other hand, made an excellent point:
Another difference is more individual. aptitude toward sprinting, middle distance or endurance (and overall conditioning) impacts how long someone can hold a steady pace.
I would like to propose a couple other items to consider:
1) the world's fastest swimmers don't actually spend nearly as much total time doing a 100 free as we lumpenproletarians. The record is around 43, right? My best time is a low 52, which means I have 9 more seconds of effort at the end of a race than Anthony Ervin. As all of us have experienced, the piano hits towards the end, so being able to get the race over with quickly, it would seem to me, would have a huge benefit vis a vis the time spent in The Death Zone.
2) I am personally in the best distance shape of my life right now, and I can hold (for me at least) a brisk aerobic pace in the 500. However, when I up the speed to depend more on my sprinting "fast twitch" muscles, the aerobic conditioning doesn't seem to make all that much difference. At Nationals in Cleveland, for instance, I placed 3rd in the 200 and 400 m freestyles in my age group. After these swims, I was tired but hardly exhausted. In the 50, I got 4th place, and in the 100 I got 5th place. After both these relatively short races, I was totally spent to the point of having trouble exiting the pool! My suspicion is that the fast twitch and slow twitch energy systems are entirely different, and it's possible to train one better than the other. Being "in shape", in other words, is not an all-encompassing term. You can be in distance shape, and you can be in sprinting shape, and--conceivably--in both types of shape, though I find it difficult to achieve this myself.
There is also ones genetic predisposition, of course, to being more sprint or distance oriented. When all this is factored in, I would hypothesize that distance swimmers will have a better 100 time by keeping the first and second 50s closer in time; and that sprinters will do better by going all out and trying to hold on.
Perhaps this might make for an interesting poll topic to test it out amongst our ranks?
Something like this:
first identify yourself as a distance swimmer or a sprinter
then there would be two polls--one for each of the above--saying something like:
in my best 100 time recently, the split difference between my first and second 50 was:
A) less than 1 second
B) between 1 and 2 seconds
C) between 2 and 3 seconds
D) over 3 seconds
Then we could look at the respective graphs to see if, in fact, there's any rhyme or reason to any differences.
What do you think, Jim M?