200 Challenge: Goal time, roadmap and status updates

Syd wrote: "It's one thing to do a broken 200 with 10 seconds rest at the 50 but quite another to swim four 50's consecutively at your target time. The first one will leave you out of breath while the second will leave you gasping for breath and wracked with a feeling of nausea." Ain't it the truth, that feeling of nausea. I can psyche myself up for trying to ignore that feeling, and pushing through it anyway, when I'm getting prepared for an actual race. But I just can't do it that often in a practice. It requires a daily/weekly mental toughness that I just can't muster (and still function at work the rest of the day). I can come right up to that point, but I can only commit to going through that point when I'm racing. My solution is to try to do more races this fall.

I would never do that -- I think this is good training for a 400, not a 200. Turnover and pace would be exactly on my 400 pace - not 200. Why train the body for a different pace and distance - the pain will be there no matter what. The set is more about training your body for lactate tolerance -- and learning to recognize the warning signs that you are overextending yourself before it is too late -- rather than "learning" race pace. A broken 200 allows one to achieve race pace when untapered...but it doesn't feel like an actual 200 race does (either tapered or not). Taking 5-10 sec rest twice during the 200 makes a big difference. And it isn't as if I'm way off race pace, either: in the 5 x 200 test set I'll average maybe 2 sec slower than I would swim a 200 at a meet at that time. YMMV.

may I add one important training aspect in preparation for the 200m Butterfly (my target event)? I don't expect performing an outstanding 200BF without being able to perform an outstanding 200kick BF. My target time for this would under 3:45 (ideally closer to 3:30) without kick board.

Good discussion - but some different view points 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. I would never do that -- I think this is good training for a 400, not a 200. Turnover and pace would be exactly on my 400 pace - not 200. Why train the body for a different pace and distance - the pain will be there no matter what. That is just about exactly my experience as well: one should be able to hold 2nd-100 pace for multiple 100s on about the 3:00, perhaps a little faster. I would not have been able to do that as a youngster - let alone now. At 1:50, my second 100 would be 56.0. From a push, I could barely do that on 6 minutes 20 years ago or now ...

My 200 free goal time for this year was a 2:05 LCM. I might have to revise it, though. The birth of our youngest, just three months, ago has meant a serious lack of sleep and not nearly as much time in the pool as I had anticipated. To compound matters, this year, our pool doubled the number of classes they normally hold over the summer holidays, so it has been really difficult to get a lane to swim in when I have managed to get there. But I haven't given up on it entirely. I'd like to get as close to it as I can. My meet is still 10 weeks away at the end of October. In the meantime I have a smaller meet next weekend (9/5) where I will be swimming the 200 (also LCM). I am not going to taper or shave for it. I will stop going to the gym this coming week, though. This coming weekend I am aiming for a sub 2:10 and even splits. The thing is, I am relatively new to the 200 and, only now, am beginning to understand how to swim it. Two years ago, at my first masters meet, I went 2:16.34 (out in 1:05.07 and back in 1:11.27). Last year, I went 2:10:33 (out in a 1:01:44 and back in a 1:08:89). Last years splits were worse than the first year. I died horribly on that last 50. I was aiming for a 1:01 on the first 100 - so that was spot on - but had wanted to come back in a 1:04. Just didn't have the stamina. This year I intended to fix the stamina but it just hasn't worked out that way. I had wanted to do lots of aerobic stuff. 100's on the 1:30 getting as close to my target time as possible. Instead, out of necessity I have been doing much faster, shorter stuff. A lot of what I have been doing is similar to what Allen and Chris describe. Everything I have been doing has been geared towards swimming at a pace that I can maintain. My target time is a 2:05 which works out to be an average of 31.25 per 50. Put that way it sounds quite manageable but, in reality, it is a different story. I am probably one of the most unstructured swimmers you could possibly imagine. I hardly ever go to the pool with a workout in mind. Sometimes I take a set from the workout section or the blogs. But mostly my workout just evolves as I swim it. Very often I will do something like this: after a warm up, swim 8 or so 50's at my target pace 31:25. I might do them on the minute but very often, I don't even care about the rest interval because all I am trying to do is to get a feel for how much energy/effort I need to swim at that pace and also try and be consistent. Then, when I am consistently swimming 31's, I will try and do a 100 in just under 1:03. If I am really feeling up to it (and I like to try this once a week, if possible) I will take a 10 second interval and try and do another one under 1:05 (i.e. a broken 200 with ten seconds at the 100). On Thursday I did one going 1:04.33 and 1:05:08. Not good enough for my goal time but not bad splitting. That is the one thing I am pleased about this year: I have been much more consistent. This morning I did a set of 4 X 100's at 2:45 (1:03:57, 1:02:30, 1:03:06, 1:05:86). Once again, all I was trying to do was to go as fast as my 2nd - 100 pace. I am now at the stage where I know how fast to go if I want to do a certain time and can usually get within one and a half seconds of it. This is a huge improvement from two years ago. Now I still need to work on that stamina. I will definitely be trying some of the workouts on this thread. Chris, ehoch and Allen all had some really good suggestions. Chris mentioned this, but it is well worth repeating: one of the most invaluable ways to train (and I also try to do this once a week) is an all out 200. In order to this, I warm up like I would at a meet, take a rest (not as much as I would at a meet) and then go for time. I soon find out if the pace I started out at can be maintained. It's one thing to do a broken 200 with 10 seconds rest at the 50 but quite another to swim four 50's consecutively at your target time. The first one will leave you out of breath while the second will leave you gasping for breath and wracked with a feeling of nausea.

What if he is one of those who just doesn't train? Nice, very nice. Be careful what of what you wish for there sparky.

So I assume your goal time is about 1:53.To do that you are going to have to be able to go at least under 1:00 in workouts( you can have some fudge factor if you are one of those who drops a lot when you taper,or own a Jaked.On the other hand if you plan to swim the second 100 closer to the first,as is common for freestylers,you may want to be faster.).Remember I said do enough rest to meet the goal time.A good rule of thuimb is about 1:2 swim:rest or in this case about 100s on the 3 min would be a good place to start. 1:54.99 actually. This makes sense to me. I guess the issue I'm facing, at least during an organized practice, is that something like that is nearly impossible. I can possibly swim every other during a set but our sets are usually 3-4 repeats before we move on to something else which makes that a challenge. Plus I just feel so weird saying 'I'm only going to swim every other' and I feel guilty for throwing everyone off of thier intervals by going on the first one, then resting, then going, etc... We start next week at our indoor pool and I'm going to try to swim there 3 days per week so maybe that will make a difference.

I also liked That Guys mantra. But 9 underwater kicks off each wall in a 200 back may be asking for the check engine light to come on. :) Like I noted before, a good test to see if you can race a 200 back that way is to complete a 1000 and a 1650 in practice the same way. I haven't attempted those distances under this protocol... I guess it's time to do that. My protocol is a bit different now though - I changed it to 10 kicks + 9 strokes because I found that at 9 + 9, I would often glide into turns. 10 + 9 seems to set me up for fast turns more consistently, even when my arms are getting tired. (Or if I'm feeling ambitious, 12 + 8 works nicely too... that'll probably be next year's protocol!) On the final length of a swim, I try to do 11 kicks so that I can get my hand on the wall without taking an extra stroke or gliding in. (Next year that'll be 13 :D)

Mike Ross' guide to the 200, found on another thread: " 200 pace feels powerful, but not out of control. Let's start with the first 50. In a good 200, the legs will kick on the first 50, but the kick is not using a lot of energy. It is more to help keep tempo. ... The second 50 is sometimes a challenge. You should feel good on this 50 and that can have one of two effects. You may decide, "I feel too good, I need to slow down". Big mistake. Slowing down on this 50 will let the wave slip past you. You might think "I feel good, I should go faster". This too is a mistake. The wave will certainly crash down on you if you do that. You need to find a zen-like state between these two thoughts. Keep your speed, but don't use up your energy. The split? ... (about 2 seconds slower than the first 50). The third 50 is a build up 50 and in many ways this is a relief. You can begin to let your kick "work" if you have a good kick, without the fear of sapping all of your energy. You should play with building a 50 to get accustomed to bringing the kick into your stroke. If done right, when you hit the final 50, you should have enough energy left to let the kick loose and be able to come home at the same pace as the 3rd 50. If not, you might question why your left arm will not respond to commands anymore. " That's my 200 challenge. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for posting this. I'm saving it and memorizing. I also liked That Guys mantra. But 9 underwater kicks off each wall in a 200 back may be asking for the check engine light to come on. :) My goal this year is to swim 4 days a week with more stretching and weight room time in between. The plan will be to have at least one day set aside for broken 200's, or test sets of 100's (probably on Fridays).

I think that you are unique in that regard. When I do 3 or 4 200's on 8 minutes and am atleast 10 seconds off race pace. Do you wear a tech suit when you do it? I sometimes wear an aquablade and come within 3-4 seconds of race pace. Maybe I should wear my new Amphibian Jammer when I do this set. I also tend to agree with Ehoch that doing timed 200's is good training for the 400 (or 500) more than the 200 itself. I like this set for training for 200's: 4 or 5 300's broken up like this: 75 at the pace you want to take your 200 out in 25 easy (like pull on the ropes easy) 200 keeping long smooth stroke. Dave Salo posted this set somewhere or another. If you want to go under 1:50 in the 200 then you need to go 1:52 in season. 54.0 / 57.9 is how I would split it (not recommending this, just how I would do it). This means to do the 75's in just under 40.5. No tech suits in practice for me. Just to be clear: I am going 2-3 sec off wat I would do in a race AT THE TIME, not at season's end. If one needs, one can take more rest than that. I am going much faster than I could hold for a 500 in a race (again, AT THE TIME). I drop a lot of time when I taper. Last SCY season, my best unrested time in the 200 back was 1:59; I went 1:51 at nationals (wearing legskins). In LCM my best unrested time was 2:19 (legskins) and I went 2:12 at nats (jammers). I mention the suits to show that the drop isn't due to suits but taper/training. That's more of a drop than I usually get when I taper, but 5 sec in a 200 is not at all unusual. So if I follow the logic of "don't do quality work except at goal race pace," I would never swim the entire race until the end of the season. I reject that logic because I like to practice my chosen race.