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....
Parents
Former Member
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.
Cool! This is the kind of thing I was really interested in, Shark. This seems like it can be scaled upwards as a training notion that simulates an overall race strategy but at varying loads and intervals.
Thanks. I'm "dizzy with possibilities...."
:drink:
A very individual thing.....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.
Thanks. Again, sounds like something that can be scaled and approximated in workouts, allowing for tinkering in order to find what works best.
:drink:
The secret being able to swim it is in your pace of course....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.
And that's the problem in a nutshell.. I feel like I can simulate near race conditions for 100s and 200s stroke fairly regularly and glean an approach. And 500/1000 free, say, has the advantage of swimming lots of intervals AND being the same stroke throughout.
6 weeks ago, I just so happened to swim Shark's method. 1:20 fly, 1:30 back, 1:35 ***, and 1:20 free. Painful.
Pleasantly surprised, I started training stroke more. Then, a couple of days ago, promising to get out faster as I used to be a flyer AND after some ez days, I was out 1:10ish, probably the same splits for back and *** as before--I was barely hanging on, couldn't work turns at all on either stroke--and then a brutal 1:25 free. Exceedingly ugly and painful and floating around for a *long* time after. Lifeguards almost got the hook, I think. All for a 5 second improvement.
So that's what got me asking the question in my first post. One variable--of many--changed and impacted the whole thing. I might have been 8-10 seconds faster if I'd approached it as before, shaving 2 or so seconds a leg. And not cracked a rib from heaving. Who knows? As above, I'm in know hurry to try the experiment again.
So sincere thanks for the suggestions for this newb to board. The breating on fly and scaled pacing sound really promising. I'm also thinking of the following:
50 fly fairly brisk, 50 fly longer stroke and breathing twice per three
50 back long, rotating, belly breathing; 50 w/ higher turnover but less kick
100 *** build throughout
...and we'll see where that leaves me for the free
Once again, y'all rock. :bow: Happy swimming and I'll report back on some results in about another 5-6 weeks. If I don't :drown:.
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.
Cool! This is the kind of thing I was really interested in, Shark. This seems like it can be scaled upwards as a training notion that simulates an overall race strategy but at varying loads and intervals.
Thanks. I'm "dizzy with possibilities...."
:drink:
A very individual thing.....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.
Thanks. Again, sounds like something that can be scaled and approximated in workouts, allowing for tinkering in order to find what works best.
:drink:
The secret being able to swim it is in your pace of course....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.
And that's the problem in a nutshell.. I feel like I can simulate near race conditions for 100s and 200s stroke fairly regularly and glean an approach. And 500/1000 free, say, has the advantage of swimming lots of intervals AND being the same stroke throughout.
6 weeks ago, I just so happened to swim Shark's method. 1:20 fly, 1:30 back, 1:35 ***, and 1:20 free. Painful.
Pleasantly surprised, I started training stroke more. Then, a couple of days ago, promising to get out faster as I used to be a flyer AND after some ez days, I was out 1:10ish, probably the same splits for back and *** as before--I was barely hanging on, couldn't work turns at all on either stroke--and then a brutal 1:25 free. Exceedingly ugly and painful and floating around for a *long* time after. Lifeguards almost got the hook, I think. All for a 5 second improvement.
So that's what got me asking the question in my first post. One variable--of many--changed and impacted the whole thing. I might have been 8-10 seconds faster if I'd approached it as before, shaving 2 or so seconds a leg. And not cracked a rib from heaving. Who knows? As above, I'm in know hurry to try the experiment again.
So sincere thanks for the suggestions for this newb to board. The breating on fly and scaled pacing sound really promising. I'm also thinking of the following:
50 fly fairly brisk, 50 fly longer stroke and breathing twice per three
50 back long, rotating, belly breathing; 50 w/ higher turnover but less kick
100 *** build throughout
...and we'll see where that leaves me for the free
Once again, y'all rock. :bow: Happy swimming and I'll report back on some results in about another 5-6 weeks. If I don't :drown:.
