There is a nice article by Linda Shoenberger as the March Fitness article on swimming all the events without the utter hopelessness of knowing you are guaranteed to be dead last in a competition environment. It starts:
"Once upon a time there was a swimmer who didn’t want to compete in swim competitions. She just wanted to do fitness swimming and enjoy the camaraderie of a USMS workout group.
"But she also wanted to swim all the pool races offered in USMS competition. She couldn’t imagine herself racing the 200 butterfly in front of a bunch of other swimmers, coaches and spectators. But she could imagine herself swimming the 200 butterfly in practice at a leisurely pace without the pressure of being at a swim meet."
So the coach encouraged people to do the Check-off Challenge and made time during workouts for swimmers who wanted to, to swim the events.
:)
(Nice coach, pat pat...)
Former Member
I agree. It's not really that bad if you're a decent flyer and you don't take it out too hard.
Could not agree more. A 200 fly can be swam under vo2max intensity. With little practice, it's possible to hold on to such an intensity level for 4 or 5 minutes without much problem.
Most people fear loosing their ability to recovery the arms over the water after a whilst, and that has more to do with technique (timing) than fitness per se.
But the key is to acknowledge the fact that for most of us (including myself), BF is a slow stroke when performed over a longish distance.
long pushoffs and lots of kicks in between pulls and you'll get through it. Funny enough, I am under intense procedure to get an official FINA ruling in favor of surface dolphin kick. At the moment, some officials are having a hard time interpreting the Rules Book.
Surface dolphin kick offers the huge benefit of allowing you to breathe during the kicking portion of your 200 event, making a 200bf closer to a walk in a park than a suicidal combat mission.
