IMer's I need a 200m IM split diagnosis

Thanks Ian, I will try the "few strokes of fly, switch to free" approach in workout. I don't know that I'll give up my selective skipping approach entirely as I feel that our workouts often fall into the almost continuous and therefore medium speed category. Most people on my team seem to think that getting more than 15s of rest is too much, I don't know how many times I've told people if you think you're getting too much rest you aren't swimming hard enough! When I swim on my own I often do this workout: WU: 10x100m free, alt swim and pull 1000m of fly work with fins: 5x50m one arm fly - 25m right, 25m left focusing on some technique point 5x50m of N right, N left, rest of the way full for N=5,4,3,2,1 500m full fly in mostly twenty-fives, some fifties near race pace with lots of rest holding technique WD: 200m easy free I could never do that amount of fly without the fins. I do worry about becoming a fin addict but so far it seems to be helping with being able to do enough repetitions to solidify the technique changes I am working on. Hmm, as I think about it, I often do those 25m flys on about 18s, and the last few 50m flys I've done have been around 36s when I concentrate on technique (my best time last year, just going for it was 34.67LCM so this is a little discouraging) which makes me wonder if maybe I've trained-in a particular tempo. Maybe if I concentrate on doing 17 and then 16 for 25m my races will start coming in more where I would like? To throw in a token on-topic thought, if one thinks of fly as analogous to an inefficient freestyle technique in terms energy requirements, which I think makes sense, then the faster drop off in times that one sees for fly would likely occur for someone with an inefficient "power through it" freestyle, so it could be that Robert (and I) have such severe drop offs because of inefficient technique rather than because we are drop dead sprinters. Looking at Robert's 200m free splits they remind me of the sort of splits I was doing before someone convinced me that I could take it out harder and just how hard and "painful" a 200 is supposed to be. When I really went after it and ignored the fact I felt like I was dying I dropped several seconds. But I also realized the 200 is really unpleasant! Perhaps Robert is also being overly conservative. Similarly I took a few seconds off my 100 when I stopped trying to pace the first 50 and treated it more like a 50m race with more breaths followed by 25m of really go for it, followed by 25m of give it everything you've got left. I think non-late-bloomers sometimes take the ability to swim through the "pain" they acquired when younger for granted and underestimate how much of a barrier this is for a late-onset swimmer whose every natural instinct is to pace to avoid "dying".

Thanks Ian, I will try the "few strokes of fly, switch to free" approach in workout. I don't know that I'll give up my selective skipping approach entirely as I feel that our workouts often fall into the almost continuous and therefore medium speed category. Most people on my team seem to think that getting more than 15s of rest is too much, I don't know how many times I've told people if you think you're getting too much rest you aren't swimming hard enough! When I swim on my own I often do this workout: WU: 10x100m free, alt swim and pull 1000m of fly work with fins: 5x50m one arm fly - 25m right, 25m left focusing on some technique point 5x50m of N right, N left, rest of the way full for N=5,4,3,2,1 500m full fly in mostly twenty-fives, some fifties near race pace with lots of rest holding technique WD: 200m easy free I could never do that amount of fly without the fins. I do worry about becoming a fin addict but so far it seems to be helping with being able to do enough repetitions to solidify the technique changes I am working on. Hmm, as I think about it, I often do those 25m flys on about 18s, and the last few 50m flys I've done have been around 36s when I concentrate on technique (my best time last year, just going for it was 34.67LCM so this is a little discouraging) which makes me wonder if maybe I've trained-in a particular tempo. Maybe if I concentrate on doing 17 and then 16 for 25m my races will start coming in more where I would like? To throw in a token on-topic thought, if one thinks of fly as analogous to an inefficient freestyle technique in terms energy requirements, which I think makes sense, then the faster drop off in times that one sees for fly would likely occur for someone with an inefficient "power through it" freestyle, so it could be that Robert (and I) have such severe drop offs because of inefficient technique rather than because we are drop dead sprinters. Looking at Robert's 200m free splits they remind me of the sort of splits I was doing before someone convinced me that I could take it out harder and just how hard and "painful" a 200 is supposed to be. When I really went after it and ignored the fact I felt like I was dying I dropped several seconds. But I also realized the 200 is really unpleasant! Perhaps Robert is also being overly conservative. Similarly I took a few seconds off my 100 when I stopped trying to pace the first 50 and treated it more like a 50m race with more breaths followed by 25m of really go for it, followed by 25m of give it everything you've got left. I think non-late-bloomers sometimes take the ability to swim through the "pain" they acquired when younger for granted and underestimate how much of a barrier this is for a late-onset swimmer whose every natural instinct is to pace to avoid "dying".