Somewhere after 1000 meters I remember thinking "I am never swimming this race again". We'll see!
I pretty much always think that, yet I swim it nearly every chance I get. The trouble is, chances to race long events don't come along often enough to get real practice at pacing them.
When's your next chance to do it again? You stayed 4-5 seconds behind last fall's race every. single. 50. until the very last one. Where did you consciously ratchet it up? What if you'd started your push 100m earlier?
I think the fact that you went from 11.5 seconds between slowest and fastest 50s to 8.3 seconds shows a pretty marked improvement since your last 1500.
One thing I noticed is your 1200-1350 times started slowing up ... that is just about the time to start warming up the afterburners.
I didn't consciously speed it up until the last 50 when I saw the clock was right about at 21:00 and the math was simple enough that I realized I'd better go faster if I didn't want a slower time than last time.
You just need to apply the "pressure" a little earlier on, say around 400 to go but kinda like putting your foot down on the gas pedal - there's a couple of different ways of doing so. You can push down lightly or you can stomp on it. It appears you stomped on yours with a 50 to go. Try the lighter method next time but much earlier.
ourswimmer: I think I'll have a chance again at a meet or two in march (1650 or 1500, not sure) but I may skip those meets and concentrate on PNA zone championships in April. I didn't consciously speed it up until the last 50 when I saw the clock was right about at 21:00 and the math was simple enough that I realized I'd better go faster if I didn't want a slower time than last time.
Sets like this will probably help. I think you just need to develop more confidence in your pacing. My feeling is maybe yesterday you took a look at the clock early on and decided "uh oh, I better slow down a little." Maybe you really didn't need to slow down. As you swim distance more you'll get a feel for what pace you can maintain and this is a function of how your body feels, not what the clock reads. Personally, I rarely look at the clock or want someone to give me signals about my pace. I know not everyone feels the same way, but I feel like if I'm going too slow I probably already know it and there's very little I can do to speed up. Conversely, if I'm going fast it's probably because I'm feeling good and can go that fast. It ain't perfect. I still have races where I think my pace is good and then the piano hits in the back half, but I think the more you swim distance events the less this will happen. Well, yeah, you need to be in good shape, too!
Maybe I've hit my peak for my age.
No way, you'll get faster. I think in November you probably pushed it a little too hard going out and today you held off a little too much. The fact your last 50 was more than five seconds faster than what you were holding before that says you had quite a bit left in the tank.
Oh, and sorry I screwed up your count once in the teens somewhere! I think I inadvertently flipped the counter back instead of forward. Anyway, I realized I screwed up pretty quickly. Oops. Maybe I was thinking about my race too much! :)
What I'm hoping for is something more like a 1 minute time drop. I think what I'll do is start swimming on saturdays again (on my own) and work on specific distance sets like 16x100 (yards) on 1:30. I actually did that set 1 week before my meet in november, on the advice of a triathlon coach, and I think it helped. I didn't do it this time around.
David I think you would have had a much improved time if you had gone out faster. You must have felt very strong for your last 50. A great last 50.
Set the time you want to do for the 1500 then do your 100 repeats with a ten second rest. 1:20 would give you a 20min 1500m
