The IM Lane

If you want to maintain the transitions as part of your "pacing" and want to account for the natural "anticipation/renewal" you feel when you approach/start each new stroke... Try this... (will mean you need a clock at both ends, synchonized) 25 fly - 5s rest 50 fly - 10s rest 50 fly-back - 5s rest 50 back - 10s rest 50 back-*** - 5s rest 50 *** - 10s rest 50 ***-free - 5s rest 50 free - 10s rest 25 free At the end, take the cumulative time and strip one minute off. (easy math!) I have found that learning to work the middle 50 of each stroke in this set helps alot in keeping my head straight in the actual 400 swim. Let me know what you think. It's worked for me in the past. My training was interrupted by a head cold, but I'm back at it and tried a few of these. I did a slightly modified version, (mostly because I wasn't not confident I could keep your rest intervals straight.) 75 fly - 10s rest 50 fly-back - 10s rest 50 back - 10s rest 50 back-*** - 10s rest 50 *** - 10s rest 50 ***-free - 10s rest 75 free I did: broken 400 IM, 200 free mod, full 400 IM, 200 free mod, broken 400 IM. These were not hard efforts, more like cruise+. The add-up times on the broken 400 IMs were within 2s of each other. The full 400 IM was 10s slower than the first (faster) of the 2 broken swims. I'd hope for a bit more than 10s between my best practice swim and a meet performance, but I'll just have to wait for a meet to see how it works out. How does your add-up time compared to a best-effort full 400 IM relate to your meet performance? Interestingly, the add-up time on the broken 400s was very close to the add-up time for this set, which I have done numerous times: 8x(50/:50) done as 50 fly, 25 fly + 25 bk, 50 bk, 25 bk + 25 br, 50 br, 25 br + 25 fr, 50 fr, 50 fr mod. Of course this latter set cheats me out of 25 fly.

If you want to maintain the transitions as part of your "pacing" and want to account for the natural "anticipation/renewal" you feel when you approach/start each new stroke... Try this... (will mean you need a clock at both ends, synchonized) 25 fly - 5s rest 50 fly - 10s rest 50 fly-back - 5s rest 50 back - 10s rest 50 back-*** - 5s rest 50 *** - 10s rest 50 ***-free - 5s rest 50 free - 10s rest 25 free At the end, take the cumulative time and strip one minute off. (easy math!) I have found that learning to work the middle 50 of each stroke in this set helps alot in keeping my head straight in the actual 400 swim. Let me know what you think. It's worked for me in the past. My training was interrupted by a head cold, but I'm back at it and tried a few of these. I did a slightly modified version, (mostly because I wasn't not confident I could keep your rest intervals straight.) 75 fly - 10s rest 50 fly-back - 10s rest 50 back - 10s rest 50 back-*** - 10s rest 50 *** - 10s rest 50 ***-free - 10s rest 75 free I did: broken 400 IM, 200 free mod, full 400 IM, 200 free mod, broken 400 IM. These were not hard efforts, more like cruise+. The add-up times on the broken 400 IMs were within 2s of each other. The full 400 IM was 10s slower than the first (faster) of the 2 broken swims. I'd hope for a bit more than 10s between my best practice swim and a meet performance, but I'll just have to wait for a meet to see how it works out. How does your add-up time compared to a best-effort full 400 IM relate to your meet performance? Interestingly, the add-up time on the broken 400s was very close to the add-up time for this set, which I have done numerous times: 8x(50/:50) done as 50 fly, 25 fly + 25 bk, 50 bk, 25 bk + 25 br, 50 br, 25 br + 25 fr, 50 fr, 50 fr mod. Of course this latter set cheats me out of 25 fly.