200 Challenge: Goal time, roadmap and status updates

Hey Chris, Thank you for your advice which I will heed. In the past I have used sets like the one on page 215 of the Swim Coaching Bible - Mike Bottom's contribution: 3 x { + 300 easy}. I'd be very grateful if you have suggestions/alternatives to try out. That set sounds good, as long as you are (close to) hitting your desired 200 pace. Like many others, I like to think of my 200s in terms of a target 50 pace. First step is to set a tough but realistic goal for the 200 so you can decide your 200 race pace. A typical way to split a 200 is: N-2/N/N/N. So if my goal time for the 200 back SCY is 1:50 (which it is), that means N = 28 sec including the turn. So my goal 200 pace is in the range of 27.5-28.0. Basically what you want to do then is train your body so that you hold this pace with the least amount of effort, swimming efficiently and relaxed. Once you have a good feel for what constitutes a 200 pace, and you can hit your target pace while feeling that way, you are set to go. I've gotten to the point where I can tell fairly accurately in the warmup before a race what my time will be in the race itself, just based on how my pace 50s are going. Broken 200s like Erik recommends are one way to practice race-pace training -- we do variations often -- but there are other ways too. One variation that my coach likes is to break it into 50s but decrease the rest as you go (eg, 8/6/4 seconds break) with strict instructions to hold the 50s all at the same pace. IMO this comes closest of any broken 200 to reproducing the actual feeling of a race 200: the correct 200 pace feels easy at first but then gets progressively harder to maintain. But nothing reproduces the feeling of a race 200 quite like actually doing them. You can do this in meets and in practice test sets; we do 5 x 200 on 7:00 (from the blocks) several times during the year. You can't maintain race pace of course, but you need to learn to listen to your body early in the race so you can pick an appropriate pace; otherwise you'll go out too fast (most commonly) or too slow. Another common set our coach gives us is something like: 200 strong on 3:00 2 x 100, 10 sec rest, on 3:15; add-up should be faster than previous 50 easy on 1:00 4 x 50, 10 sec rest, on 3:30; add-up should be fastest, ideally at or better than 200 pace 50 easy on 1:00 Repeat if you feel up to it. We also do similar sets for 100 pace (100 strong, 2 x 50, 4 x 25). I am on hiatus from blogging but feel free to check out my workouts from the last 8-9 months; during that time I probably targeted the 200 back more than any other event.

Hey Chris, Thank you for your advice which I will heed. In the past I have used sets like the one on page 215 of the Swim Coaching Bible - Mike Bottom's contribution: 3 x { + 300 easy}. I'd be very grateful if you have suggestions/alternatives to try out. That set sounds good, as long as you are (close to) hitting your desired 200 pace. Like many others, I like to think of my 200s in terms of a target 50 pace. First step is to set a tough but realistic goal for the 200 so you can decide your 200 race pace. A typical way to split a 200 is: N-2/N/N/N. So if my goal time for the 200 back SCY is 1:50 (which it is), that means N = 28 sec including the turn. So my goal 200 pace is in the range of 27.5-28.0. Basically what you want to do then is train your body so that you hold this pace with the least amount of effort, swimming efficiently and relaxed. Once you have a good feel for what constitutes a 200 pace, and you can hit your target pace while feeling that way, you are set to go. I've gotten to the point where I can tell fairly accurately in the warmup before a race what my time will be in the race itself, just based on how my pace 50s are going. Broken 200s like Erik recommends are one way to practice race-pace training -- we do variations often -- but there are other ways too. One variation that my coach likes is to break it into 50s but decrease the rest as you go (eg, 8/6/4 seconds break) with strict instructions to hold the 50s all at the same pace. IMO this comes closest of any broken 200 to reproducing the actual feeling of a race 200: the correct 200 pace feels easy at first but then gets progressively harder to maintain. But nothing reproduces the feeling of a race 200 quite like actually doing them. You can do this in meets and in practice test sets; we do 5 x 200 on 7:00 (from the blocks) several times during the year. You can't maintain race pace of course, but you need to learn to listen to your body early in the race so you can pick an appropriate pace; otherwise you'll go out too fast (most commonly) or too slow. Another common set our coach gives us is something like: 200 strong on 3:00 2 x 100, 10 sec rest, on 3:15; add-up should be faster than previous 50 easy on 1:00 4 x 50, 10 sec rest, on 3:30; add-up should be fastest, ideally at or better than 200 pace 50 easy on 1:00 Repeat if you feel up to it. We also do similar sets for 100 pace (100 strong, 2 x 50, 4 x 25). I am on hiatus from blogging but feel free to check out my workouts from the last 8-9 months; during that time I probably targeted the 200 back more than any other event.