Hi. Still kind of new here. And I did a search on "400 IM" but its said my terms were too generic and not usable in search....
Anyhow, figuring the 400 IM has surely been discussed, I thought I'd start a thread about learning out how to swim it when you only get to two races a year.
I've swum the 400 IM as a target swim twice in last 6 weeks, i.e. warm up, ramp up 50s, recovery, then some splish-splash (roughly 1200 yds) then the swim. Then laying around hurting, then 200 ez. And then I'm tasting iron in my mouth and have hot, tingling toes and hands (this makes sense, I hope) for a good long while afterwards, so that's pretty much it in terms of my quality work for that work out. Getting to the pool 4 x week, it seems counter productive to do this much beyond once every 3-4 weeks or so.
With so many variables (increasing fitness, weak/strong strokes in various quarters of the race, turnover vs glide, etc.) how do you approach things, not so much in the race, but in learning how to swim it your best?
In other words, this seems like the hardest race to simply scale upwards and may demand the greatest amount of individualized strategy, but the success of any of the multitude of strategies only truly reveals itself at full on race pace.
Thanks in advance, and, again, hope this hasn't been done to death....
I've swum the 400 as follows:
100 fly - long and strong, taking full advantage of walls, but not enough to take away from normal breathing
100 back - same
100 *** - glide glide glide, building within the 100
100 free - book it with whatever you have left
Folks will tell you to back off on the backstroke, as that kills your legs. They're partially right, but I have found that without legs, my momentum dies and the rest of the swim suffers. The key is to not blow your wad on the first 200, cause if you do, it is the *** leg that will destroy you.
Former Member
Search -Individual Medley - also here is one I found
forums.usms.org/showthread.php
In sum, I just swam it for the fun of it, crazy as that sounds.
Me too, though once there was a free dinner up for grabs.
Former Member
I like the challenge of the 400 IM. When I could still swim evilstroke without killing my knee, I would follow a strategy more or less the same as posted by Blackbeard's Peg. Only I didn't ever really get in a lot of yards in preparation. To be competitive I think would take some monster sets in practice.
In sum, I just swam it for the fun of it, crazy as that sounds.
I negative split the backstroke
Keep in mind this is pretty common because you're touching to your feet (presumably) at the end of the first 50, but to your hand at the end of the second.
...but back to the topic. In my opinion the 400 IM doesn't involve that much strategy. You need to pace it in such a manner that you're going as fast as you can without dying. It's as simple as that. I don't believe in holding back in certain strokes and pushing others. You really need to go as fast as you can in each stroke.
A very individual thing. My experience is that my fellow masters swimmers don't put in the volume required to pace a 400IM very well and it is often a race of survival. To that end a couple of friends and myself have had luck breathing every stroke on the fly for the reasons outlined by most other folks.
That said, the Book Championship Swim Training has a 200 and 400 IM worksheet that uses your bext times for the four strokes to calculate how you should split the 400 IM.
...but back to the topic. In my opinion the 400 IM doesn't involve that much strategy. You need to pace it in such a manner that you're going as fast as you can without dying. It's as simple as that. I don't believe in holding back in certain strokes and pushing others. You really need to go as fast as you can in each stroke.
I'm with Kirk. I did the 400 IM for fun last March. I'm hooked. Now I've done it LC as well and working towards LC Nats.
One practice set I do that lets me know that I CAN do the 400 IM is a build to 200 IM. With SC yards.
25 fly
50 fly
50 fly, 20 back
50 fly, 50 back
etc. until 200 IM complete.
You can come down, too. Either take off the fly or the free first. I pretty much do 5 sec per 25. So 5 sec after the 25 fly, 10 after the 50 fly, etc.
Enjoy.
Alison
Former Member
Make sure you get a lot of air during the fly leg of the race. This is critical. I suggest to my swimmers to use a 2 up 1 down stroke count with no breath in or out of the walls, as you get a breath on the wall. I like to see the backstroke leg no slower than 5 seconds slower than the fly, with the *** leg no slower than 10 seconds slower than the fly, 15 tops. (if you are not good at ***) The free should be as close to your fly leg split as you can get. IE, a swimmer of mine last year split 59high, 105mid, 115low, 100high, with tenths - 4:22.35. Made YNats and earned himself a scholarship to a small D1 college. This has been my experience.
"Picture a bright blue ball just spinnin' spinnin' free, dizzy with eternity." - Bob Weir
Former Member
I for one would not attempt th 400 IM now. Depending on your level of swimming is the way to swim it.
The secret being able to swim it is in your pace of course. The fly is the stroke that you can blow the whole race on. I suggest a smooth clean arm recovery and a from the shoulder undulating kick that you feel you can handle but try to stay with anyone you are racing without killing your self.
No one can tell you how fast to go on your legs of this event it is something you will have to work on. If this is the event you are focusing on you should do lots of them and workout what your splits you are going to be able to handle.
Flow,
I am not a breaststroker, and have been doing mostly fly and free the last several years. Backstroke is an old favorite of mine. Your question of working your best stroke - in a 400im, if I did that, I'd want to work the fly real hard, then the backstroke like I do in a 100IM. I'd build a nice lead, but it'd all be downhill from there, and I'd probably hyperventilate on the ***.
*** being my weakest stroke, I like to build that up so I try not to lose any ground. I wouldn't say I "sally save-up" for the free, but if I am building up over the previous 300, it is not difficult for me to attach the free split.