200m Pacing: Even? Positive Split?

The best way to figure out what works for you is to race a lot, and experiment with different strategies. If you want to see what world class swimmers do, check out the NCAA Men's swimming results for guys like Townley Haas - swimswam.com/.../.

I appreciate these responses, thanks. I see Mr Haas did indeed do a healthy positive split, even if you negate the dive-in.

Swimming an even paced 200 is actually going to feel like you're swimming a negative split as the fatigue factor kicks in. I like to swim 200 builds in practice to get a feel for the increased effort over each 50. One of the things I find that helps me is tracking my stroke count for each length, trying to hold it steady for the entire distance.

200 Freestyle is the newest "sprint," at least for yards. For meters I suppose it is a little tougher to approach it with that mentality. You really have to strike a balance between attacking the first 50 to stay in the race, while holding back some for the back half without losing the race on the first 50 (which is where I almost ALWAYS lose my 200 freestyle races!).

Remember these guys are going a lot faster, so as a similar percentage think 3 sec slower for the first 50 and then each 50 thereafter 4 sec slower than the first. This is the pace I aim for with my 200M BR and LCM I am aiming for 3 min. So my ideal splits for a 3 min. 200 is 42,46,46,46. In 2016(last time I wasn't sick or hurt for LCM Nats) I went 3:00.1 as 41.07,46.49, 47.18, 45.27. BR is not free and most free swimmers split more evenly than most BR swimmers, but YMMV

Remember these guys are going a lot faster, so as a similar percentage...I love Windrath's analysis, but to Allen's point, use % deltas or % of total race time vs actual seconds. I use Excel (the world's greatest piece of software) to benchmark my 400 IM times vs myself and the elites by simply looking at % of total time taken up by each stroke. I did this analysis a few years ago - forums.usms.org/entry.php. So, you could build a similar spreadsheet and layer in columns showing Haas, Seliskar, Farris, etc. and then your times as you race this over and over again.

Ooh, I love the 200 (though it killed me in ABQ last week!). One of the things i like to do to train for it is to do 5 of them and descend from the back: 200 easy 150 easy, 50 fast 100 easy, 100 fast 50 easy, 150 fast 200 fast This gives a good feeling of pushing it hard at the end. I've had good success with using this set in training and improving my 200 times/race strategy. I'll do these on 3:15 and try to get in under 2:30 or better, depending on where I am in the season.

My first 200 Free was in LC. I planned to positive split and assumed I'd just hang on for the final 50-75 meters. The splits were something like 1:13 and 1:24. To say it was painful is a wild understatement. I've since found that my best results in the 200 Free are when I think I'm holding back on the first 50 and haven't fallen apart before the last 25. Point being, figuring out the math is the easy part. Having the fitness and the pacing awareness while racing to actually carry out the formula is another issue entirely. I'm a big advocate of breaking down a race like this into more manageable parts. Doing repeats of 50's on 15-20 seconds of rest, essentially USRPT, at your intended race pace will both build endurance and the pace at which you want to swim the race at will become very familiar to you.

Skuj, After years of looking at 200 splits and coaching kids (or me) to best times, one of the best ways to decide how to swim the 200 starts with knowing your best 50 and 100 times. The elite swimmers's first 50 is usually 1.5-2 seconds slower than their fastest 50. The 2nd 50 is usually 1.5-2 seconds slower than the 1st 50. Ideally, the 3rd and 4th 50s are very close to their 2nd 50. Use Dean Ferris's splits from his 1:29.15 at the NCAAs in March: -1st 50 was 20.6 (his best is just under 19) - 2nd 50 was 22.3 (1.6 sec slower than 1st 50) (His 42.8 was 2.2 seconds slower than his best 100) - 3rd 50 was 22.5 (very close to the 2nd 50) - 4th 50 was much slower 23.72 (he was paying the price more than Townley Hass) The formula I use is 2 seconds slower than best on the 1st 50, and the 2nd-3rd-4th 50s should all be 2 seconds slower than the 1st 50. If you cannot maintain that pacing, you are going too fast on the 1st 50 or you need to train harder. The nice thing about this analytical approach is you can train this way with broken 200s (4 x 50 with 10 sec rest). Watch the clock, get your splits, and get used to what 2 seconds actually feels like. As Calvin S mentioned - the 200 has become a sprint for the men and they train for it with alot of anaerobic threshhold sets (heart rate above 180) to improve their body's lactic acid tolerance especially in the legs. It seems like the 400, 800, and 1500 track distance times have plateaued more than the equivalent swimming distance. I suspect it has to be with the injury/exhaustion factor if they tried to train on land the same way the elite swimmers are training. They would have to do alot more track training sets like 10 x 200 (100% effort) with 15-20 sec rest or event 5 x 400 (95% effort) with 20 sec rest and try to split the 800 like 46-50.

So, to expand on what Mr. Windrath is saying, the four fastest SCY 200 freestylers of all time (Farris, Haas, Pieroni, Seliskar) swam very similar races for their best times. Out fast, maintain through 150, hold on for dear life the last 50 to varying degrees of success. What's interesting is that they are all very different styles of swimmer. Farris is absolutely massive for a swimmer and tends towards sprints now (though he's also a great 200 backstroker). Haas is the other way around - he's a great freestyler from 50-1650 but his next best event is the 500. He's also terrible turns/underwater, and is kind of a string bean compared to the others. Pieroni is your prototypical 200 freestyler, and your prototypical sprint freestyler build. Seliskar is an underwater beast, and is the smallest of the bunch - he tends to longer races too, having done the 400 IM instead of the 200 free at every NCAAs prior to last year. To me, this consistency in tactics despite vast differences in style supports the thought that this is the current consensus of best way to swim the 200 SCY free. 200 LCM free appears to be completely another story, I don't think the swimming world has really figured out the best way to swim that since the supersuits went away - Nobody has come within a second of Biedermann's world record, and I think only Yannick Agnel in 2012 has come within a second of the prior Michael Phelps world record. It's just hard to maintain a full sprint-ish kick for that long in the long course pool.