One of the key themes this season in the NCAP senior prep practices that I go to has been pacing, primarily 200 pacing with some 500 pacing thrown in there. The idea is that you figure out what that pacing feels like in practice, so you can then turn around and swim that pace in a meet, rather than just showing up to race and having no idea what pace you’ll go.
Sure, you can have two swimmers who go a 2:00 in
the 200 free, for example, but they might split their races very differently.
In practice, Swimmer A would figure out how they’d need to pace their race and
what their splits should be for each 50. Ditto for Swimmer B. Let’s say Swimmer
A splits his 2:00 200 free as 28.0, 29.5, 31.0, 31.5. In practice, se should
know what that 28.0 feels like, what the 29.5 feels like, and so on. And not
only know what it feels like, but be able to consistently swim that time in
practice when he’s supposed to be swimming that pace. Before his race at a
meet, he knows exactly how he’s going to swim the race; during the race, he
knows approximately how it’s going as he’s swimming it, since he knows what
his desired splits feel like.
That’s the whole idea behind the pace work we’ve
been doing all season and it’s a concept I wholeheartedly support both as a
swimmer and as a coach!
Like I mentioned earlier, we’ve been working on
pacing a lot in practice, and I’m mostly pretty happy with how I’ve done with
200 pacing for the various strokes. Here’s how I’m hoping to split my races by
50, in order, at Nationals barring any injuries or meltdowns. These are all ballpark target times, so if I've got a 37.5 listed, for example, but actually go a 37.1 or a 37.9, I won't mind. If I go a 38.5, on the other hand...
200 Breast
33.0, 37.5, 38.5, 40.5 for a target time of 2:29.5.
As points of reference, here are my two most recent fast 200 breast splits:
- 2018 Spring Nationals: 32.7, 37.4, 39.5, 41.3 for a 2:31.0
- March 2019 meet: 33.5, 37.9, 40.3, 41.4 for a 2:33.3
I’ve been working on my middle 100 pacing for this
and last Thursday I did two of ‘em (I did 2 x (1 x 100 at pace and a 50 easy,
together on 3:00) and was 1:19 on the first one and 1:18 on the second one.
Given that I’m aiming for a 1:16 on the middle 100, a 1:18 in practice is right
there, given that I’ll be shaved, suited, and amped up during the race itself
compared to practice.
I also think I’ll be able to swim it smarter than
I have in the past—I get my speed in breaststroke from the underwater pullout,
but up until the past few weeks, I consistently stayed underwater too long in
the 200, which brought up lots of oxygen deprivation issues on the back half of
the race. I’ve been working the past few weeks on shortening my pullout a bit
for the 200, which has paid off in not dying as bad in practice.
100 Free
25.8, 28.5 for a target time of 54.3. As a point
of comparison, the last time I did this shaved and tapered was back in 2017, I
split 26.0 and 28.6 for a 54.6. As another point of comparison, my real*
lifetime PR is a 54.4 from when I was an age grouper. My official lifetime PR
is a 52.8 as an age grouper, but I’m pretty sure that was a timing glitch since
I never broke 54.4 before or after that errant 52.8.
I haven’t been doing any real 100 free training
this season, I only entered this event because Nathan Adrian had said he was going
to swim at USMS Nationals prior to his cancer diagnosis and I wanted to “race”
him. I also haven’t been doing any 100 pace training during my taper and don’t
plan to over these last few days before I swim it on Friday, so who knows how I’ll actually split it! 😊
200 Fly
30.7, 36.0, 36.5, 36.5 for a 2:19.7. As a point of
comparison, my Masters PR, and the last time I actually raced the 200 fly, was
from 2017 (noticeably, not a shaved and tapered meet with splits of 31.4, 36.0,
37.4, 37.7 for a 2:22.6.
I’ve actually been having issues in practice
during my taper so far with going too fast on my fly pace work. Last Thursday I did
3 pace 50s fly and then the same 100 pace/50 easy set I did for breast. I was
:35, :34, :35 for the 50s, then 1:13 on both 100s. I would love to be able to
hold those paces at the meet, but since I haven’t really done any 200 fly
training until the last month or so, I don’t know if I have the aerobic base to
do that without having one of my more epic meltdowns on the last 50. I did two more pace 50s on Saturday at the end of practice and way waaaay too fast on the first one with a :32, but managed to slow it down to a :35 on the second one. Frankly, it feels like I'm holding way too far back to go a :35, so I really don't know what to really expect at the meet.
200 Back
31.2, 34.2, 34.5, 34.5 for a 2:14.6. As a point of
comparison, my 200 back from Nationals last year had splits of 31.4, 34.6,
35.0, 35.4 for a 2:16.6.
My backstroke is a big question mark right now. The
stroke feels pretty good in the water, but my times aren’t there. I’ve been holding
anywhere from :34-:36 on pace 50s during my taper, and my pace 100s have been
from 1:09-1:12. Unlike with any of my other strokes, I haven’t been able to
nail down a consistent pace. I’m hoping it’ll iron itself out over the last few practices of my taper, but so far, meh.
200 IM
29.0, 34.2, 38.7, 32.1 for a 1:14.0. As a point of
reference, my last shaved and tapered 200 IM was in 2017 with splits of 29.3,
35.0, 38.7, 32.1 for a 2:15.2.
I haven’t done any 200 IM pacing per se during my
taper, but we did some great 200 IM sets a couple months ago. My big problem
has historically been primarily that I go too slow on the backstroke leg. The
200 IM set we did a few times was a number of 150 IMs, dropping the fly, with
the goal of swimming around the same time as the equivalent 150 split in your
meet 200 IM. For me, my best meet split is a 1:46 for the back-breast-free portion. During the set, I was holding
1:43s and 1:44s, so I *should* be able to actually swim faster than my target
splits listed above if I can get it through my head to hammer the backstroke
leg instead of hold back a bit like I habitually do.
200 Free
27.5, 30.0, 31.0, 31.5 for a 2:00.0. As a point of
comparison, my last shaved and tapered 200 free was in 2017 and I had splits of
28.5, 31.0, 32.0, 32.8 for a 2:04.5.
Ok, this one is pretty ambitious, especially for
being the last of 6 events at the meet, but *should* be theoretically feasible.
My problem in the past with this race has been holding back too much on the
front half. I did the same set of 50s and 100s in practice on Thursday and was
holding :30s and :31s on the 50s, and a 1:02 and 1:03 on the 100s.
Even more ambitious, looking up my results from
back in the day, my lifetime PR is a 2:00.3. I know I generally swim much smarter these
days than I did as an age grouper, but I’ll be pretty amused if I set a
lifetime PR in freestyle, of all strokes, in my 30s! :-D
