Just heard that at long course nationals in Oregon this summer Dennis Baker plans to swim the 1500 butterfly instead of freestyle!!! The tank is supposed to be one of the fastest in the country with the new remodel.
When did the 1500m fly become an Olympic event. Or is this 1500m fly cruelty to animals.
Now if fly is faster then free (crawl), I can see the reason for doing this. Otherwise it is a useless swim other then showing some one can do this. About as useless as someone swimming across Lake Erie doing the fly or someone swimming the Alcatraz swim with hand cuffs on.
I know the last two.
Like BillS said in this post, "Try something new." It's a freestyle event, you can do sidestroke if you want to. I'm not interested in finding out what I can do in the 1500 elementary backstroke, but I do want to improve my 500 fly time enough to where I'd be comfortable swimming it in a meet. I've also been thinking of trying an 800 or 1000 medley, just to make the 400 feel shorter.
The 1650 fly is a regular event at the Rinconada Masters Spring Meet in Palo Alto.
www.swimborboleta.info/.../Welcome.html
These results aren't up to date from the most recent event, which was my teammate's third time doing it.
In late 70's Arden Hills phenom Brett Favaro swam the 1500 at US Nationals and took 7th....then again he wasn't 45...then again Dennis better taper for once!! :)
In late 70's Arden Hills phenom Brett Favaro swam the 1500 at US Nationals and took 7th...
I knew Rex at UCLA (he swam, I didn't). He told me they used to occasionally swim 1500 fly in practice (I'm pretty sure this was pre-UCLA). He didn't tell me he'd ever done it in competition!
Skip Montanaro
Southern Connecticut University coach had star swimmer Kristen Frost do the 500(scy) butterfly as punishment
I became a 200 flyer because in high school I was very often given 500-1000 swims fly as punishments, usually for mouthing off to the coach (I was such a joy to coach). There was no problem keeping good form and I got my senior national cuts that season for the first time.
We often did overdistance fly in college. The nice thing they do for you is that you no longer fear a measly 200 -- you really do get to the point where it is no more difficult than freestyle. One of my teammates once did a straight 8,000 fly in a LCM pool -- he actually volunteered to do it, to avoid doing a 10,000m free.
I can't do things like that now, though my 40-year-old teammate Dave Holland still can.
Two years ago, Dave did the hour swim butterfly. He didn't do it straight (the big wuss), he did 50s with about 5-10 sec rest. After he finished, he wasn't happy with his distance -- I think he was just shy of 4000 yards.
So after about 10 minutes rest, he did it again. He broke 4000 the second time.
