My goal was 4500; I went 4550, holding 1:19s. My training partner pulled away at 3000 and finished with 4625; I didn't try to stay with him. The first 2500 felt great (effortless?), but after 3000 I began feeling hungry and didn't want to bonk (we swam at 7am so there was no prerace meal other than my usual latte). Surprisingly, my time at the 3000 mark was only 15 seconds slower than my 3000 Postal time in November. My breathing pattern for the first 3500 was two breaths on the left, one on the right--which worked well. Looking forward to tapering (and shaving) at the end of the month for the Charlotte meet where I'll be squaring off with the Geek (and my training partner) in the 500. One of my college coaches used to say that the 500 is a sprint. Now I believe him.
I think I have adequate conditioning. I need to focus on technique and race pace swimming.
Do you really think breathing causes you to slow down that much? I doubt it. My opinion is breathe whenever you need to. Preferable not out of a turn, but otherwise there's no sense killing yourself just so you can say you did a 50 in X number of breaths.
Breathing slows me down at least .4s: that's what I was beaten by the last time I breathed into the wall and my opponent did not. We were even beforehand.
Do you really think breathing causes you to slow down that much? I doubt it. My opinion is breathe whenever you need to. Preferable not out of a turn, but otherwise there's no sense killing yourself just so you can say you did a 50 in X number of breaths.
Yea. I think it does slow me down. I feel my stroke break up (turnover decreases and rhythm is interrupted - arms and legs). It's my fault for getting in the habit of breathing poorly (not integrating it into my stroke more). I really swim differently in the 50 than I do in a 200 and 500 free. Plus, in watching myself in on video, you can see the disruption on the 50 when I breathe. In watching the gals who are swimming 50s in 24 seconds (the couple that I look up to), they breathe twice total in the race. Anyhoo, just working on building up my lung capacity in the meantime. I agree in that beathing as needed in the 200 and up is fine - as long as it's not excessive.
Newmastersswimmer,
You're so good for my ego. You've made my day! I can't wait to get back in the water. I'm sidelined for a while now and hope I can get back to those times in about a year! posted by Swimr4life
I have confidence in you that you will be back in top form soon Beth!....Sorry to hear about your injury though. I have been suffering from an infection in my left leg for the past several days and today was the first time in 4 days that I could actually walk without the aid of crutches. Fortunately I only missed a couple of days in the water so far.
Newmastersswimmer
Very interesting! I see Robert Margalis broke Dan Veatch's record by swimming 6,135 yards. Margalis broke the AR in the 1,000 free a few days ago with an 8:42, so that postal swim was probably just a nice training swim for him (holding 58.7 hundreds on the one hour vs. 52.2 on the 1,000).
