splits

I thought about "Ask Ande", but then I thought this might turn into a long topic depending on who replies. alot of times when someone says they died in the last 50 of a 200, the responses are overwhelmingly slow down the first 50, or take it out slower to save yourself. but I plan on taking a different approach to improving my times. Work on being able to finish my race. I have accepted the fact that for me to sprint under :27 or under 1:00 would take lots of speed work. but I only swim freestyle for fun and training for OW. I prefer IM and ***. Here is my currrent situation: 35 yrs old SCM masters best 50m free 27.53 masters best 100m free 1:00.85 I got my 200 time down from 2:14 in nov 2008 to 2:10 in april 2009. But my split was 1:01.8. 29.44, 1:01.80 (32.36), 1:35.52 (33.72), 2:10.95 (35.43/1:09.15) the first response I got from my teammates was you took it out too fast since I came back 7 sec slower. But did I go out too fast, or did I just not swim the last 100 or 75 to my best ability? I felt I took it out nice and easy with long strokes. I started to pick up the arm speed for the 3rd 50, but maybe that was a mistake, maybe since I can't sprint I should have just increased the depth of my pull instead of the speed of my stroke. I won't be swimming SCM again until sept/oct but I plan to try to swim it : 29.5 + 32.00 + 32.5 + 32.5 --> 2:06.5 (1:01.5 + 1:04 ) one of the 17 yr olds on our team swims the 50 and 100 around my times, 27.3 and 1:00.25 but he manages to swim the 200 in 2:07.61.