the 5 minute 500

I always thought it would be cool to be able to break 5:00 in the 500. While it would be a bit of a stretch I feel like it's potentially within reach and given enough of the right kind of training I could do it. That said I also feel like every second between me and the 5 minute mark is going to get harder and harder to knock off. I've always been, and continue to be, more of a breaststroker than a freestyler. I have no ankle flexibility so I pretty much always need to deal with dragging two brakes through the water. I've never really trained seriously for free events even though I do try hard and consider the longer frees to be my secondary events. To give you an idea I swim about 3000-4000 a day, probably realistically average 4-5 times a week. I can and will increase that over the winter as we head into the meets starting in January. Intervals average in the 1:15-1:20 range, sometimes dipping to 1:10. I can pretty comfortably hold 1:10-1:15 pace depending on the set. Doing a 1:00 100 from a push is hard but not impossible. So far my fastest masters times in the 200 are 1:55 and the 500 a 5:18. I know I can go much faster in both, in that 200 I took water instead of air on the turn at the 100 and was choking and coughing for the last 100 and still somehow managed a best time. The 500 was the last event of a long weekend of swimming and I was exhausted. I bet I could have done a 1:53 and a 5:14 given better circumstances. Anyway, any training tips or things to work on? Ideal way to split it? Is the 5:00 500 going to be ridiculously difficult or given enough training reachable? Thanks guys. That and the :50 100 (I'll save that one for later) are two swimming marks I always wanted to check off my list.
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  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Speaking of race strategy here are my 500 splits from today. At least, the differences between them since my actual time was kind of slow and I don't feel like posting it. 0.00 (fastest 50, other splits are relative to this) +3.13 +3.90 +3.48 +3.69 +3.32 +3.45 +3.25 +3.08 +0.23 What I strive for is to try to maintain the same pace throughout. Except for the first and last 50, my splits were pretty even (between 3.08 and 3.90 slower than my fastest 50). But I had more energy left at the end that usual, so maybe I could have gone faster.
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  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Speaking of race strategy here are my 500 splits from today. At least, the differences between them since my actual time was kind of slow and I don't feel like posting it. 0.00 (fastest 50, other splits are relative to this) +3.13 +3.90 +3.48 +3.69 +3.32 +3.45 +3.25 +3.08 +0.23 What I strive for is to try to maintain the same pace throughout. Except for the first and last 50, my splits were pretty even (between 3.08 and 3.90 slower than my fastest 50). But I had more energy left at the end that usual, so maybe I could have gone faster.
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