200 IM + falling piano = challenge

Congratulations on the 6 second drop! Nice work. You have a very nice fly split, but there's a big drop-off from the 33 split on the fly to the 46 split on the backstroke. Is it really your backstroke or are you too tired from the fly? What are your splits for 100 back and 200 back? If they are better than your IM back splits maybe you are going out too hard? Just a thought.

These are very helpful thoughts--the set ideas look good. I will work them in to progress from here...Thanks so much!

I started this thread two years ago when I swam my first 200 IM. My SCY season in 2009 was compromised by intermittent training, so I didn't advance the cause too much. Since then, however, I have maintained consistent time in the pool and established a decent level of conditioning. I've worked on my fly and my breaststroke kick, and I've put more time in doing IM sets. A week ago, I swam the 200 IM for the first time since 2008, and I took six seconds off, from 2:50.99 to 2:45 flat. My splits were 33.7 46.6 49.7 35.0 I used many of the thoughts provided in this thread over the intervening months, and I wanted to note the drop and especially express my thanks. Now I need to invest some time in improving my backstroke, and maybe I can drop some more... Thanks, forumites, for the wisdom and the support. Just some quick thoughts -- six seconds is a very impressive drop! Your free split is strong, so your pacing is pretty good, but your backstroke may still need some tweaking. There are two things I've found most helpful in backstroke, body position and the start of the pull. For body position drills, I'd suggest that you lie on your back on a kickboard and do double arm backstroke. Try not to let the board go flying out from underneath. This is where your body is flat in the water, and this is the position where you will create the least resistance. For the hand entry, I'd suggest some backstroke pull sets with paddles -- but do them easy and concentrate completely on mechanics. Don't blow your shoulders out! If you look at some of the fast backstroke swimmers, their arms are nearly at 45 degrees when their hands enter the water. You can't get much of a pull with your hand above your head, it doesn't produce much in the way of forward thrust. So try putting your hand into the water further out from the centerline, and see where you get the fewest strokes per lap. I'm afraid I can't help you much on breaststroke -- I need to milk the pullouts as much as I can to keep from actually swimming the stroke. On the turn, though, pull yourself in close to the wall with your lead hand, and let your trailing hand point back to where you're going. Get a quick breath and push off hard and slightly downwards. You're allowed one dolphin kick and you should use it -- your butterfly split indicates your kick is pretty good. Best of luck!

Hey Red, nice swim!!! Has your 50 fly improved? I noticed that your fly split dropped a whole second. Your *** and free splits are a lot better too... maybe overall conditioning has improved? Congrats! I think we are on the same 200 IM schedule, because I really haven't swam it since that March 2008 time I posted in this thread! Well, I did swim it last April, but that was post-partum and post-appendectomy and it was not a pretty sight, so I'm just not going to count that. I'm swimming it again in 3 weeks, hopefully semi in-shape and tapered. I will be super-happy if I get down to the 2:45 range. Congrats again on your time! :)

I'm not half the swimmer of most of the posters here, but here are my $0.02. You might want to try workouts #6 and #10 here: ruthkazez.com/LunchSwims.html There are also lots of IM workouts here: ruthkazez.com/50swimworkouts.html Based on your 200 splits and the fact that your 50 *** is 40.65, I would agree that your weakest link is the back. One idea to work on that is to do "Buldge" IMs where you throw in an extra leg of the stroke that you want to focus on. In your case, a 1000 yd buldge IM set would be: 8x(25 fly, 50 back, 25 ***, 25 free) Improved fittness should speed up the *** leg since you know that you have more breaststroke speed in you, if you can just dodge the piano before you get there.

Try to get someone to help with the 2 weal strokes .

Frank and Fritz: (nice combo--you guys could go on the road!) my fly felt great, not too fast. My 50 fly in the same meet was 31.6, an improvement from 32.4. The bottom line is that my backstroke is terrible from a technique standpoint. I pretty much need to start from scratch. I've gone to a local coach for a private session or two in recent years (for free and fly), and I think it's time for another one. If I can bring my backstroke up to a level of competence (!) it will help a great deal. The 45 degree thing is a good suggestion. It has been pointed out to me that my head moves like crazy and my arms cross the center line, so there's plenty of work to do! In general, my race felt great. It hurt, especially coming home in free, but it also felt under control. This has really become my favorite race. If I can get my backstroke under control, I'd like to try the 400. Everything else feels good enough to try. Thanks for weighing in! This really is a great help, especially the ideas of new things to try and the evaluation of my splits as they relate to each other.

Hey Feisty, I wondered how you were doing, since we exchanged thoughts on this thread two years ago. Good luck on your swim in three weeks! You'll have to report back here to tell us how it went. I see you're in Naperville. I toyed with the idea of swimming in the Illinois championships, but April is killer for me at work and it seems my SCY season is now over. Time to recover a bit and gear back up for the LCM 200 (having never done that!) Yes, my fly has improved, and I'm pleased about it. It's those middle strokes that pose the problem... Thanks for checking back in--can't wait to hear how you do!

Weally good advice. Get help.

Frank and Fritz: (nice combo--you guys could go on the road!) my fly felt great, not too fast. My 50 fly in the same meet was 31.6, an improvement from 32.4. The bottom line is that my backstroke is terrible from a technique standpoint. I pretty much need to start from scratch. I've gone to a local coach for a private session or two in recent years (for free and fly), and I think it's time for another one. If I can bring my backstroke up to a level of competence (!) it will help a great deal. The 45 degree thing is a good suggestion. It has been pointed out to me that my head moves like crazy and my arms cross the center line, so there's plenty of work to do! In general, my race felt great. It hurt, especially coming home in free, but it also felt under control. This has really become my favorite race. If I can get my backstroke under control, I'd like to try the 400. Everything else feels good enough to try. Thanks for weighing in! This really is a great help, especially the ideas of new things to try and the evaluation of my splits as they relate to each other. Red, as you may recall from my earlier post here I have some similar issues with my backstroke. My fly is also very much a work in progress; one of my first posts here 4-5 years ago was about trying to learn fly from scratch at the ripe old age of 45. The 200 IM has always been a goal of mine, so a while back I screwed up all my courage and gave it a shot. My only goal was to complete it legally without the piano taking me down mid-race. I cruised the fly and then tried to work a little harder after that. Here's how it turned out: Swim Details Swimmer: Sumerfield, Bill H Sex/Age: M49 Club: Oregon (OREG) Meet: Short Course Meters Pentathlon Event: 200 SCM IM Heat/Lane: Heat 2, Lane 2 Seed Time: 3:00.00 Final Time: 2:51.54 Splits Leg Cumulative Subtractive 1 40.60 40.60 2 1:28.03 47.43 3 2:14.99 46.96 4 2:51.54 36.55 Obviously, I need some major work on backstroke, but I was pretty pleased with this for a first effort. For reference, my 50 fly at the same meet was a 35 low. I think I can probably go out a little bit faster without dying, but the biggest bang for my buck will come from fixing whatever ails my backstroke. Although I really dislike swimming it, I am trying to do more and more of it in practice. Fortunately, we swim a lot of IM on my team. I really enjoyed this swim. While my time isn't very competitive, I can see this becoming one of my favorite events, too. Thanks for reviving this thread. For me, reading advice from the more experienced swimmers about how to tackle an event helps me find the confidence to give it a try.