Training in yards, racing in meters?

I have lots of pool time (UBC aquatic centre), but I most often wind up in the 25 yard diving tank for my workouts as the 25m lanes are usually an absolute gong show. If I want to race in meters, should I make every effort to train meters, or is yards OK? Is there a disadvantage going from yards to meters? In the US, most people have very limited access to SCM pools for training, so we generally do the vast majority of our training for SCM meets in SCY pools. I generally compete in freestyle and IMs and swam a fair number of SCM meets this fall. I very often count my strokes in my longer freestyle events (200, 400, 800) even when racing to try to ensure I'm staying long. So, I did find it useful, although really only for freestyle, to do some training as the meets approached in an SCM pool in order to get my stroke count right.

Thanks! When you say you count your strokes to make sure youre staying long, does this mean that youre trying to assure that youre not spazzing out and spinning your wheels? If you train scy (and presumably have an optimal stroke count) do you have to re-calibrate in the scm pool? Is this done by doing some races for time pre-meet? M Yes, I'm trying not to have my stroke rate too high to conserve energy. In all honesty, in each of these distances, I'm generally good counting strokes for the first ~75% of the race and then I just go hard, regardless of stroke length and rate, for the last ~25%. I do have to calibrate my stroke for SCM from SCY. It's usually only about 1 stroke difference for me, but that actually is meaningful as it means I generally need to change my breathing pattern as well as which arm is the one driving me through a turn. As far as training for this, I generally do hard/fast swims in a SCM pool before the meet. I also try to swim a few SCM meets before I go to the meet where I really want to swim fast. For example, this past fall, my peak meet was in December, but I swam in one meet in each of October and November in SCM.

If you swim backstroke, one difference to watch for is that the flags are different in SCY (5 yds) vs SCM (5m).

I think training SCY and racing SCM isn't a huge deal. You might feel a little differenc the last length in the 200, but assuming you're training hard and consistent you should be able to push through it. To compensate you could swim stuff like 125's or 225s to swim the same distance as you would in a meters race. Going to LCM is a different story all together however... its almost like a different sport.

Thanks! Yeah, Im not going to race LCM just yet. We do get the 55 yard outdoor pool opening in the summer, so maybe after a while of swimming in that. M

In the US, most people have very limited access to SCM pools for training, so we generally do the vast majority of our training for SCM meets in SCY pools. I generally compete in freestyle and IMs and swam a fair number of SCM meets this fall. I very often count my strokes in my longer freestyle events (200, 400, 800) even when racing to try to ensure I'm staying long. So, I did find it useful, although really only for freestyle, to do some training as the meets approached in an SCM pool in order to get my stroke count right. Thanks! When you say you count your strokes to make sure youre staying long, does this mean that youre trying to assure that youre not spazzing out and spinning your wheels? If you train scy (and presumably have an optimal stroke count) do you have to re-calibrate in the scm pool? Is this done by doing some races for time pre-meet? M

The worst part of training SCY and competing SCM is not knowing what you times mean. And that isn't always a bad thing. I think the pre competition jitters/adrenaline make up for the feel for the distance. I really couldn't feel a difference during a SCM race. Good luck, and welcome back to swimming.

Thanks dudes, pretty well much what I wanted to hear. If I had to keep swimming in the 25m lanes, I would have lost an eye sooner or later for sure. M

since your shooting for the 200 fr I would say not much worries, but if you wanted to be sure swim sets of 225's to get use to swimming farther than you will. but if you swim fly or ***, there could be a timing issue. atleast for me in ***, we have a 25 yds warm pool for the elderly and baby swim classes, but I swam a 25 *** from a push to show my daughter, and hit the wall mid stroke. but that could have just been my bad.

I had never even swam SCM until I entered master's a while back. To me it is a very wierd distance, and a bit hard to get paces down because I either think in SCY or LCM. The gym I swim in has a 6 lane 50 m pool, but a few evenings per week they switch over (move bulkhead) to the pool is sectioned in half - thus 25 m. My last really competitive swimming was done in high school - 25 yards. I did swim some LCM on the club team, but not too much. Hard to gauge exactly what good splits are until you spend a good amount of time at that particular length. I would reiterate what was stated earlier - for a race, if you have trained well, you should have the additional endurance to compensate for the extra swim length. Train hard - l like the idea of a 125 or 225 to simulate the total length you will actually swim - and you will be fine!