will opening a meet with a 200 kill my other events?

It felt real good going out. I was going stroke for stroke with a girl next to me and it was exciting. I stayed with her stroke for stroke unitl the third turn. My turn was weak and poorly executed and she put half a body on me, then motored away in the last 25. It was alot of fun. I was gassed out. I kick hard in the begining. My kick went away on the last 25. I work out in a 100ft pool, so my "50" is really a 66.6. It makes a difference!!

68.76 (31.63) (37.13) 5.5 64.00 (29.69) (34.31) 4.62 63.22 (29.68) (33.54) 3.86 You didn't say what your best 50 time is, but it looks like you're comfortable in the 29.7 range for the first 50. I have been shooting for an opening 50 about a second to 1.5 slower than my 50 time, which may be a bit ambitious for me at this point. When I do that, my splits differential is closer to three seconds than 1.5 to 2. I think you are correct that your splits shoud be closer together. Based on your improvement in the last race, I'm guessing you picked up the opening 50 a bit, but really picked up time on the back half. OK, so looking at the table above, we see that you picked up over .6 on the opening 50 and .8 on the back 50. That's very substantial improvement, but your 3.67 differential is still too big. How did it feel? Did you first 50 feel smooth and strong? How are your turns? What's your stroke count like? Are you just running out of gas, or are there structural problems with your race? Part of what you need to determine is whether you are a rabbit or a finisher. I'm still trying to work that out myself. Here's an example from my last meet, in which I was beaten by a half second by a guy in my age group whom I'd love to knock off someday: Me (26.31) (29.27) 55.58 Wil E. Opponent (27.19) (27.85) 55.04 Wil E. is an experienced competitor, and knew that this race being at altitude might be a factor, so he probably went a little easy on the first 50 and then brought it home with a vengeance. He likely left a little of that race in the pool, but he did what he needed to do to win. My 26.31 was exactly a second faster than my 50 free time, which should have been about right, but I was unable to hang onto that pace, whether due to altitude, lack of conditioning, or staying up late and drinking beer and playing guitar with a buddy the night before, who knows? Anyway, I would work on swimming some 50s at 28.5 - 29 to learn how that pace feels, but really work on negative or flat split 100's to learn how to bring it home. Focus on your technique in the back half when you start to tire, especially the third 25, then rely on your legs to sprint to the finish. Practice fast turns in practice, too. I like to sidle up next to someone in the next lane coming into a turn and then try and beat them off every wall. It's easy to get lazy with your turns in practice, and all 3 turns are critical in the 100. Good luck!