The Butterfly Lane

Update--with goal of doing well in 100 SCY and for next summer finish 100 LCM fly. For fly work I have been working on my own I find that doing more than 500 fly is just too tough and stroke breaks down. So, I have been mostly doing 400-500 fly/workout and building endurance (will focus on speed later). Half are broken or straight 100's and the other half is a set of 50s, say 4x50s with the 2nd ~5 secs of rest, 3rd and 4th having nearly a min of rest (actively working on getting that rest period shorter). I do try to incorporate some fly component in our Masters Group practices (2-3x/wk, we rarely do stroke work) to add extra fly in my workout, but it isn't easy. Still, I find fly is the most fun stroke, and haven't felt any sense of being burnt out training.

I breathe on every stroke. This gives me what I need to finish the 200 fly.

Update: I had my first meet of the season a couple of weeks ago and one of my events was the 100 fly. I went a 1:04.18, which isn't all that great of a time in the grand scheme of things, but I'm quite happy with it for a few reasons: 1) My only faster October time was a 1:03.91 from 2 years ago, I have had plenty mid-season times slower than what I went at this meet, and was in fact a 1:04.54 at this same meet last year with meet jammers. 2) I swam it wearing only a drag suit, since I inadvertently put the wrong suit in my bag and didn't have meet jammers to wear, and the baggy drag suit was the only thing I had to wear. 3) I felt fantastic for about 90ish yards, then stupidly did a 4 stroke no-breather into the finish instead of the normal 2 stroke no-breather that I actually train for...that was a poooor decision... All in all, I'm very pleased with how my fly training is going! The 2-1 breathing pattern is really helping me get my hips up and keep from going vertical in the water as my shoulders start to shut down, so when I start adding in the 200 fly to my race repertoire in January, I'm hoping I'll put up great in-season times. I just started playing around with a 1-1 breathing pattern this week, not sure if I'll continue to play with it or just stick with 2-1 for now, but if I stick with it I'll likely end up going with 1-1 for the 100 and 2-1 for the 200. I probably won't get any race video till late January, but I hope by then my technique (and times) will be substantially better than in the previous videos I posted. I'm pumped so far!

104 is a good time from the 108. did you like your form? For the most part, I did. It broke down on the last ~10 yards when I stupidly did a 4 stroke no-breather finish, but it felt great up until then. I don't have any video of the race to crosscheck, but it felt like I was keeping my upper body low in the water and my hips up, and kept a good rhythm throughout. I'm doing the 100 fly again at a much faster pool the week after Thanksgiving, so I'm hoping for a 1:02 or so, which would be a normal March/April time for me. I'll see if I can get someone to record that race so I can see if the reality matches how it feels.

104 is a good time from the 108. did you like your form?