200 Challenge: Goal time, roadmap and status updates

Very nice job Syd. How was your kick throughout the race? A bad flipturn during a 200 can really throw you off. I hate when the timing pad slides as I push off, not helpful for the concentration at all. Good luck in October. Don't get spooked, just swim a scary fast 200 and frighten all your competitors. I am sure it will be a real treat!

Thanks for your encouragement qbrain and thanks for starting this thread. It is helping to keep me motivated. My kick wasn't great. It is the weakest part of my stroke and still needs a lot of work. I have this weird crossover thingy happening which I just can't seem to shake. To be honest, I have no recollection of what my feet and legs were doing (besides slipping off the touch pad) for the entire time of that race. Another thing to work on, now that you mention it.

My kick wasn't great. It is the weakest part of my stroke and still needs a lot of work. I have this weird crossover thingy happening which I just can't seem to shake. To be honest, I have no recollection of what my feet and legs were doing (besides slipping off the touch pad) for the entire time of that race. Another thing to work on, now that you mention it. I ask because there is a lot of strategy involved on when to really turn up the kick and how much to turn it up. I think a strong kick will help your back half quite a bit. A month of 4-8 all out 25s kicks 3x/week really helped me improve my kick quickly. Volume kicking never helped me much.

Current 200 free "masters best" times - - LCM: 2:43, SCM: NT, SCY: 2:24 Goal: 2:35 SCM by Dec 2009 (TBA Colonies Zone SCM meet) Roadmap: 1. Continue training with current training group, as I have improved in the short time that I have been swimming with them. 2. Speed work at least 2 times a week either on my own or at the end of practice (per recommendations from fellow forumites to drop time in my 100 free) 3. Continue strength training/dryland for overall strength/endurance

Current 200 Free SCM personal best: 2:25 Aiming for: sub-2:10 Roadmap: 1. Increase base Endurance with loong swims. (sets of 2000's maybe?) 2. Work on sprint speed. 3. Try to kick during the whole 200.

Haha, my goals are a bit slower than most of you. I couldn't break a 2:40 LCM 200 this summer. I also noticed that any low intensity ultra long distance sets did diddly squat for my 200 (like a 52 minute 3000 or 1500s for time), but broken 200s, and 200s for time worked great. I barely did any speed work because I wanted to improve my long distance pace, which I had little to no success with after hitting a plateau (my plateau was a 23:40 1500). I just got better at swimming the same pace forever, regardless of interval. My goal: In practice, off the wall, in a jammer: 2:08-2:10 SCY with a split of

Roadmap: 1. Increase base Endurance with loong swims. (sets of 2000's maybe?) IMHO this will be a waste of time. Doing 2000's is going to help diddly squat with your 200. The only thing you are going to get better at is doing 2000's at a slow pace. Think about it. Why would you want to be training 2000's which take thirty or so minutes when, at race time, you are only going to be in the water for just over 2 minutes. It would be like Usain Bolt saying he is going to train some marathons to build up base endurance for his 100. Base endurance here just means slow swimming, but what you really need to be doing is some fast swims where you get as close as possible to your goal time in practice. Rather think of it this way. Your goal time is 2:10. That means you need to average 32:50 per 50. You need to train your body to know what it feels like to swim at this pace. Try doing some broken 200's (with 10 seconds rest at the 50) where you go under your goal time for each 50. Or break it at the 100. Good splits here would be a 1:03/1:06 or a 1:02/1:07. Once again, rest for 10, but this time it will be much harder. Finally, do 200's for time in practice. Get someone to time you. (Or time yourself if you can. I do it with my watch but it slows me down, momentarily, at the tun. I push the lap button as I am pushing off the wall in streamline). You need to get your splits for the 50's or at least the 100's. Now you can work out where you went too slow or, perhaps, where you need to speed up. Finally, you can work on things like starts and turns. Especially turns. If your turns are slow you could be losing up to half a second or more each time. That could add up to almost 4 seconds over a short course race. The difference between a 2:13 and a 2:09 perhaps.

Roadmap: 1. Increase base Endurance with loong swims. (sets of 2000's maybe?) I agree with Syd's suggestions, the long swims are not the kind of endurance you need. Endurance probably isn't even the right word for a 200, maybe pain tolerance :) On the aerobic side, you want to do the typical Xx100s on T, where T is as low as you can tolerate. On the lactic endurance side, you want to do something similar set wise, but with T giving you lots of rest and your pace being close or at race pace. Both painful, both helpful "endurance" work. One you endure oxygen debt and the other you endurance lactic buildup.

My goal: In practice, off the wall, in a jammer: 2:08-2:10 SCY with a split of

Life time best 1:51 SCY (~2:04SCM) current Masters best 2:10.95 SCM current 100 1:00.94 current 50 27.68 Goal under 2:05.00 (end of 2010) roadmap.... get my speed up by training more sprint 25, 50's and 75's on a weekly basis and not just the 2-3 weeks before a meet. weekly lactate training. work my turns on every set not just on technic days. swim 50 under 27 swim 100 under 1:00 will only have 4-5 chances to race the 200 fr in the next 16 months because it usually collides with my main events.